A Widow's Epilogue
by rosncrntz
Summary: Victoria and Albert are married: a marriage of convenience for a woman whose heart belongs to another, still. The marriage produces a child. The country is satisfied. Victoria is not. But, when her husband falls gravely ill, the past seeks her out, seeping into her heart, body and soul. Creeping to her in the night. Rated T for references to suicide and self-harm.
1. Wedding

When Queen Victoria asked her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to marry her, she was hesitant in voice and dry in throat and tears drummed against the back of her eyelids. It was not the first time she'd proposed to a man so it could not have been fear that gripped her so, but it was something equally chilling. Her fingernails sunk into the back of her hand, so forcefully that she was sure she'd drawn blood. And through her head the whole time swarmed the words her mother and uncle had said to her. _Albert is a good match for you, Victoria. You will be happy with Albert, Drina. It is your duty as a Queen. You must._ She sought love in his eyes but found her duty instead, staring back her with indefinite intent: to save or destroy, she knew not.

Duty compelled her to the marriage. Ironic, as the importance of duty had been taught to her by the man that held her heart, still, no matter how he tried to hand it back to her.

Albert accepted and her heart stiffened; part of her had hoped he would decline her, and so she could run to her uncle and mother and declare that she could not marry Albert for he had refused her. Was it treason to decline a monarch's marriage proposal? It was not an aspect of sovereignty that Lord Melbourne had taught her: and she doubted he would now, as he had done it himself, and she imagined he had no desire to be sent to the Tower on charge of treason. She wondered whether she could bring herself to send Lord Melbourne to the tower, should his actions be criminal. Were prisoners still sent to the tower? She knew not, but knew that she would not have the stomach to imprison her Prime Minister, no matter his crimes.

But Albert did not decline her, perhaps only fearing the alternative, and he kissed her. She reciprocated the kiss cooperatively, like the counter piece to his clockwork in their automaton.

And she returned to her mother and uncle, slick palms being wiped on the silvery fabric of her gown as her heart thumped against her ribcage, sending her breath juddering out of her nose. She saw her uncle as the granite statue of a lord prepared to punish her for her wrongdoings. She saw her mother as a juror, gavel in hand prepared to sentence her. Perhaps she already had. They were both monolithic and cruel and suddenly they seemed so much bigger and more powerful than her: The Queen of England. Her voice wavered as she spoke to them. She did not even use Albert's name. She did not tell them that she had performed a proposal of marriage. She did not tell them that she had offered her hand to her cousin. She simply told them that she had performed her duty, softly, and they understood what she meant.

Her mother's hands flew to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. She turned to King Leopold with a twinkle of victory flickering in her. She made some horrible cry of delight. It made Victoria angry, as she remembered the looks she would pass her uncle when she even glanced at her Prime Minister: disapproval and worry. _How am I to deal with my silly daughter?_ It reminded her of how she would look at Sir John, before he would stare at her, burrowing into her with an icy gaze and for a second making her feel guilty for showing her Prime Minister affection, before she would feel the bile rise in her throat and change her mind. Sir John would place a slimy hand on her shoulder and croon,

"You must not let Lord Melbourne _tempt_ you, Your Majesty."

As if she were some foolish little girl who did not know her own mind and was unable to perceive the minds of others and would be so easily led by a handsome face into folly. Not only that, but his assumption that Lord Melbourne wished to lead her into folly when she knew that he wanted no such thing but simply to guide her and aid her. He had always talked to her in such a way, always planting slimy hands on her, always pawing her, always breathing on her, unaware of her stiffening. Her mother was just the same, patronising. Her uncle was the same, cloying. And now they all rejoiced in the match they'd created, and Victoria watched them as if through a window, feeling no warmth in their joy and no depth in their feeling.

She took no pleasure in hearing of the wedding preparations. She took no pleasure in choosing the colour of the sashes her ladies would wear. She took no pleasure in hearing of the music that would be played. She took no pleasure in telling people that she was engaged to Albert. She took no pleasure at all in the thought of informing her Prime Minister of these recent developments. And, when he entered the drawing room – looking oddly grey against the yellow draperies adorning the walls made brighter by the sun falling on them, his reflection in the mirror looking like a ghostly film of a man – Victoria felt sick. He kissed her hand, lively in all his greyness, and she collected her unsteady voice,

"There is something I must tell you," she breathed, watching his face intently for the trembles of feeling that she knew wandered across it so briefly. She was always sure to study his face carefully, knowing that the emotions were so subtle and so brief that an unfocused eye could miss them. She wondered whether it was a strategy of his – to protect himself. Today, he showed simple intrigue, and that hurt her. "Yesterday, I had a conversation. A very," her voice wavered as it knew now what to say. She looked to his eyes for guidance but he offered none as he, too, knew not what she wished to say. "A very enlightening conversation." The word she picked was clumsy and did not portray her feelings at all. She was sure that Lord Melbourne would have picked a far more suitable phrase if it were him talking.

Melbourne raised his eyebrows and glanced at the window,

"Well, I am glad to hear it, Ma'am," he chimed, amused by her. His ease of manner frightened her.

"So, you do approve? You think I am doing the right thing?" she garbled, gaze flitting between each of those green eyes, afraid that he no longer cared, that he no longer felt anything, that he was going to resign and approve of her match and not even put up a fight and let her go. She could not bear him letting her go.

"As you've not yet told me who you spoke too or, indeed, what you spoke about: it is hard for me to say," he said, pragmatically, but with a little trickle of something humorous tampering with his tone. It almost made her smile, but she could not.

"I have asked Prince Albert to marry me!" she cried, suddenly, a moment's fervour seizing her. In a single instant, Lord Melbourne, hardly even hearing what she said, noticed the flowers in her hair. What a moment ago had brought him joy now offered the bitterest grief. Small and white.

"And he has accepted."

Hardly missing a beat, and now hearing her voice clearly repeating in his own head, he looked to the floor to escape the eyes of her and said, in voice as clear and strong as he could feign,

"Then he is as wise as he is fortunate." But he felt nothing in the words. His duty beating against his skull, he turned his face up to her for a brief second, looking for something he could not find, "Allow me to congratulate you, Ma'am." And his body turned briefly in something like a sway, eyes still downcast, before he quickly corrected himself and backed away from her towards the centre of the room, his step unsure.

 _He had almost turned his back on her._

Her body cried out that she did not love Albert and this was merely her duty and she still wishes to marry him and it is all she desires and all she thinks about. It cried out that he must not believe that this is her wish. He must never believe that she has turned him away. She would never do such a thing. She would not be like Caroline Lamb; she had promised him that. She had promised him that long ago and she would never break that promise. But her mind was silent and hurting and her mouth and lungs followed suit.

Victoria hated interruptions when she was meeting with her Prime Minister, and they often spent days undisturbed in the drawing room, looking over papers or simply talking, or perhaps taking a turn about the palace or the gardens, and not another voice slipped into their ears or another face flattered their eye. It was the way she wished it to be, and her express instructions. But then, in those moments they spent in the drawing room, Melbourne standing aimlessly in the centre of the room with his fists balled by his sides and his eyes staring fixedly at a single spot on the carpet and Victoria remaining by the window fighting away her tears and rubbing a hand fervently across her clavicle if just to give her something to do, she wanted nothing more than an interruption. She wanted him to leave, to find some excuse to have to leave and go far away, but she also wished he would stay forever and she could wrap him in her embrace and hold him there. Perhaps time itself would stop and she would never go through with the marriage, but simply remain in that state of embrace. He had often wished for the same thing, but not now. It hurt too much.

She had told him that she did not want to marry Albert: _where had that woman gone?_ He thought. In truth, she was still there. But he could not see that, for he was not looking at her. Perhaps, if he had gazed up for a moment, he would have seen her eyes, heart calling out for his heart.

The call continued, like a constant noise drawing from her, all the while, as he left, and as she watched his carriage pull away, and as she saw the gate open to free him, and as she saw the carriage turn to the road, and as she saw it begin to fade out of sight, and as she felt him sigh, and as she felt him look back for a moment, and as she felt him thinking of her.

The call continued as she was married to her cousin, in the Chapel Royal. She had felt sick in the carriage from Buckingham Palace, and the orange blossoms on her head were so heavy she thought she would falter beneath them. Crumple and fall like a doll or a petal. They felt heavier than any crown. The silk satin of her gown was hot. It made her sweat. She could feel her own sweat gathering on her thighs, a drip forming at the back of her neck. She scraped her hand to ribbons, and bit her lip until she feared it must be bleeding. Her brain seemed to swell inside her skull until she was sure it would explode from her ears.

The call of her heart became louder once she exited the carriage, perhaps to be heard over the rabble of people, a noise that threatened to blow her over, or maybe in response to seeing her Prime Minister in the Windsor uniform. Oh, his handsomeness burnt her.

The procession proceeded along the aisle. Her train, held by her ladies, felt more like a tether to her now than a bridal veil. She wished to break free from it and fly, but she was held back by it so walked slowly and with grace and dignity, looking to her husband. He was handsome, she consoled herself. He would be kind to her, she reminded herself. She daren't turn her gaze to the Prime Minister, who she knew stood at the side, holding the ceremonial sword. She thought, if she did, she would burst into tears.

The brass, proud and brash, burst in her ears and made her lungs heave.

She met her cousin at the end of the aisle, and turned to him. The priest began to talk, and she swallowed hard with every breath he took. She felt half-asleep, half-dreaming, numb with the pounding of the world, buffeting against her and swaying. She struggled to focus on anything in front of her, and all the noises culminated in a great and ugly cry.

As the words "I do" passed her lips, she could not stop her eye from settling on her Prime Minister who stood behind her husband, silent. He looked brave. She noticed that he, too, was looking directly at her. When they would previously have quickly averted the gaze they shared, they locked their eyes on each other, and his stare was full of such intensity that it made Victoria feel weak. She thought she might faint on her wedding day, with the whole country watching, under the gaze of her Prime Minister. Her knees buckled and she felt the sweat on her thighs becoming cold. Looking to him, and hearing her marriage vows, repeating them, she divulged her imagination in a dream of becoming Mrs Melbourne. She would be wearing this dress, standing in this spot, but he would be her husband. She would share her heart and body with him. She hoped he would be repeating the vows in whispers within the chambers of his heart, filling the hollow space with her, and then they would be married in soul, as she wished.

She was sure she could see the glistening of tears in the eyes that watched her. And his mouth twitched, perhaps in the utterance of those vows that would tie them together. And she saw his chest swell beneath the uniform, the gold thread flaming.

Her heart called out so forcefully she was sure the whole congregation could hear it. His heart mimicked the echo.

Then, as if on cue to concur with the calls of their hearts, a voice called out – loudly and clearly, despite the walls of the Chapel and the sound of the music threatening to drown it.

 _"_ _Mrs Melbourne!"_

Melbourne did not hear the words surrounding it, or the context the title was in, but the two words rung out like the tolling of the bell and brought blood to his cheeks. His stomach turned and he was struck with a sudden and terrible headache. The ceremonial sword teetered in his grip. He thought he would drop it. He looked to the Queen again, hoping she had not heard, but something in the steeliness of her gaze back at him told him she had.

It was a nickname he'd hoped would have died by now, with the marriage of the Queen to a young and handsome Prince. But, as he had once said to her, an English marriage would be popular and, Melbourne knew, they had been foolish in their liaison. He could not blame the public for perceiving their relationship to be romantic: he knew he would believe it to be, were he in their position. It was thoughtlessly committed: their small and brief love affair, that may have been agonisingly small and all too brief but could easily have sent ripples. They had not been careful enough, not nearly. He had not considered it when the name 'Mrs Melbourne' began to circulate, and so he had not changed his behaviour. It took him until the name was being shouted on her wedding day to realise he had been a fool.

He blamed himself for the name that he knew would continue to plague the married Queen. If only he had stepped back. If only he hadn't been tempted, drawn to her, like he had been to Caro. Stepping back could have done him a world of good, then. He had struggled to step back from Victoria, turning down her proposal, but he feared he could never truly loose himself from his ties with her. To sever them, he feared he may cut himself.

The Prince had not noticed. Melbourne was reeling. Victoria was breaking. No one saw a thing.

The procession returned to the palace in a grand line of gilded carriages, fringed on either side by trumpet-wielding men in brash red woollen uniforms, bolted with gold buttons and fringed with golden thread and golden embellishments. Their faces were proud and ruddy and their hearts were full of hope of a new marriage and an heir. The Queen was not so hopeful. She was silent, listening to the rumble and clatter of the wheels on the street and the squeal of the trumpets, and sitting rigid beside her new husband, body being rocked by the movements of the carriage until she felt sick. A few carriages behind, head down in the hope that the people of England would not recognise their Prime Minister in his carriage, was Lord Melbourne, still suffering from a dreadful headache.

The headache did not cease when the celebrations began but, instead, became more acute. Emma Portman approached and lay a hand on his shoulder, afraid he might fall, and remarked on his ashen complexion. He told her it was nothing, and that he was fine, but she could feel his body shaking.

"Lord Melbourne." It was a page boy. "Her Majesty has asked for you." Melbourne nodded, and excused himself from Emma's company. Dread running cold in his blood.

"William," Emma said, stopping him and causing him to turn back to her, "does she know where you mean to go?" William sighed,

"I assume so."

He knew where he would find the Queen without being told. Where would she go to wish him a final farewell? There could only be one place. The place where he first fell in love with her and where, he indulged himself to think, she first fell in love with him. The place was candlelit then, and the smell of spices and champagne doped the air and his senses, making it all thick and hazy as he breathed it in and got drunk on it. She was so drunk that she walked disjointedly, just like one of the dolls she treasured, being manipulated by the clumsy hand of a young girl. That same young girl made her act foolishly, unthinkingly, throwing herself on him and holding her there as they stood in half-embrace. And her eyes traced him like she was studying him, eyelids quivering and throat swallowing. His chest fluttered as her hand pressed, burning through his jacket and shirt and into his skin. He knew, in that moment, that he had fallen. He knew, in that moment, that he was unsafe.

And here she was, again, just the same as she had been, seemingly not a day older, but her face was not that of a bride. It was only a subtlety that showed him the Queen's discontent, but he had known her long enough to notice it immediately. She was very good at wiping Alexandrina Victoria away and leaving the slate of a Queen on her face, but not good enough to fool him. She turned to him and her face, which would normally light up at seeing him, flickered in anguish.

"Lord M," she breathed, her breath catching in her throat and almost causing her to falter. He noticed it.

"Congratulations, Ma'am. I have never seen you look more radiant," he smiled at her, kneeling, and kissing the hand she stretched out for him. She almost cried out at the feeling of his lips pressing against her skin, but she forced herself into silence. Her hand felt cold under his lips, like the hand of an ill woman indeed. Caro's hands had felt just the same, as she wilted in her bed, yielding to the end. His mouth smiled but his voice could hardly follow suit, no matter how he willed it to do so.

"I have heard you mean to return to Brocket Hall."

"Yes, Ma'am. If you will allow me, of course."

"If you must, Lord Melbourne," she replied against her heart's own calling.

"Thank you, Ma'am."

"I suppose this is goodbye, then, Lord M," she said, as if it were simple. Melbourne nodded.

"Goodbye, Ma'am."

She held out her hands again and, fighting the tears that rose in him, he took them. Her hands were there, but something was with them, scratching against his palm. She looked to him, but not with the bittersweet expression of a goodbye or even a look of love or sorrow. She looked to him with urgency, eyes wide and mouth open, pressing the scratchy object into her Prime Minister's hand, and forcing her gaze deep into him. Then, as if being moulded back into normality, she pulled away, leaving the scratchy object in Melbourne's hands, and smiled with all the blank serenity of a sovereign. She did not wipe away the tear that dropped from the corner of her left eye and fell down her cheek. She let it roll. Turning away to hide the tears to come, she walked down the hall, body beginning to heave and sobs beginning to rack.

Lord Melbourne opened his hands gently, as if nursing a small bird, and saw a letter upon which was scribed 'Lord M' in the Queen's handwriting. He looked back to her, but the hallway was empty. He could not read it now, not here, not with the threat of being caught with it. She had passed it to him without a word, he assumed for a reason. No. Blinking away the water in his eyes, he placed it into his pocket carefully, where it smouldered for the rest of the day, burning into him.

It was only when he returned to the privacy of his library, brooding over a bottle of whiskey, that he pulled the square of paper from his pocket, and placed it on the desk before him. He took and long swig and savoured the taste of it in his mouth, coppery and harsh, revelling in the sheer burn of it down his throat. He turned the paper over in his fingers again and again, still unopened, running his thumbs along the ink and his fingers across the corners, learning every notch where her nails had caught the paper and every blot where her young hand had bled the ink. He thought of how she had touched the paper and, by his touching it, he was caressing her hand once again.

Pulling his courage from the bottom of his glass, he pulled the wax seal from the paper, gently drawing it away and placing it on the desk, still intact. Then, with all the care his shaking drunken fingers could muster, he prised apart the paper until it unfurled and offered her words to him, and he read them, hardly breathing.

 _Lord M._

 _I have one request of you, only one, and that is that you burn this letter once you have read it. You have told me of the harm a scandal can cause, and once you have read you will surely understand that the event of this letter coming to light would be disastrous. I trust you will follow my instructions. Let none of it remain but, instead, inscribe it into the book of your memory and hold it there._

 _I feel I could not tell you directly of my feelings: as I fear we may be overheard and, more importantly, I fear I may skew my own meaning or cower away from my true purpose. This letter is the only way I feel I can talk to you as a woman, not as a Queen._

 _I could not allow myself to go quietly into my present marriage._

 _I do not wish for you to pity me. I know Albert will not be unkind to me. In fact, I believe the marriage will be convenient. I am not afraid. However, I feel I will be unable to find satisfaction in the marriage unless I tell you that you are the sole owner of my heart, still. Do not believe the pretence. I must give my heart and my body to my husband, as you understand, but, as far as I am concerned, it is you alone who holds them. I am not afraid, but I know I will be unhappy._

 _I know you turned down my proposal, and therefore these declarations may fall on unsympathetic ears. I care not. I need you to understand. I love you. I love you. I love you. I can hardly stop myself from writing the words to you. I was never able to tell you but I ask you to read the words and hear me saying them for, believe me, I am saying them in my own mind. I can only wish that you are repeating them to me. I am imagining you saying it. It sounds beautiful. Oh, how I love you._

 _I may be married to Prince Albert, but know that I will always be yours. I will miss you, but I know that one day we shall meet again in a place where we will be allowed to love one another. I long for the day. What a divinity!_

 _I will write to you when I can, but my letters will be that of a Queen to her Prime Minister. This letter will be the only one written by a woman to a man. Do not reply to this letter. Savour it. Feel it. Know it, I pray. Know that I will be thinking of you always. I will never forget the words passed between us. I will never forget your kindness. I will never forget your eyes. I will never forget what we had._

 _I love you._

 _Yours always,_

 _Alexandrina._

Without strength enough to reread the words she said to him, he took the letter and cast it into the fire. There, it curled and blackened, across the words she had written and over the kisses she had planted on to the paper, and the flames followed quickly behind, crumbling them to ash and turning them to smoke. The smoke turned to acid in his nostrils and stung his eyes. He repeated the words to her, hoping she might feel him echoing it: I love you, I love you, I love you.

He could hear the calling of her heart, beating ceaselessly into the night.

He returned to the desk and took the wax seal and put it in the box beside his son's hair and the cameo of Caro. He closed the box, sealing it, and placed it back into the drawer until it closed, and only then did he begin to cry.


	2. Pregnant

Within the first month of the marriage between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the palace noticed a change in the young Queen. She noticed it herself too but, unlike the rest of the palace and perhaps the rest of the country, she could not discern the cause of her ailment.

She thought that perhaps it was stress, for she had suffered for far too long, still meeting with her Prime Minister once a fortnight when they could both spare themselves: but it didn't feel much like sparing, more persecution. He would arrive in his carriage from Brocket Hall and then he would be announced to her like any other visitor. Then, she would have to excuse herself, making everyone believe that she was upset to be sacrificing the company of her husband for the company of her Prime Minister. Surely the greatest company a woman can benefit from is that of her husband, Victoria reminded herself, prising Dash from her lap and making her way to the drawing room. She did not believe her own mind.

Seeing him waiting for her in the drawing room, weeks since she had last seen him, she could think of no greater company in all the wide world. He seemed pleased to see her. His eyes filled with light. It made her feel younger, and more beautiful, though it brought with it the most acute pain.

For those weeks when they were apart, Melbourne feared he would forget her face and so, when they were reunited, he would search her face and try to burn it into his memory, so he could hold it there.

Melbourne felt at ease when Victoria entered the room. She looked fine, but different. She no longer looked like the young girl of eighteen, learning of the ways of sovereignty. She no longer had the same naïve sparkle in her cool blue eyes. She was less full in the face, and the roses planted in her cheeks had lost their petals and wilted into a cold grey that seeped into her lips and her neck and her eyes. He was gripped with a strange desperation for her to go back to what she once was. He knew that she was a wife now, and she looked like one. A woman belonging to another, he thought, before he reminded himself of her promise: I will always be yours. He tried to find the adoration that flowed from her letter in her eyes now, but he could not. The Victoria he knew was slipping through his grasp; though he now felt that he had never truly grasped her in the beginning. He reminded himself that it was always going to be that way, and took the thought and held it at the forefront of his mind.

He also noticed something else in the Queen, in her stance or her gait, that he found familiar: though, not from Victoria herself. It made him think of Caro.

They had become adept at pretending the letter that Victoria had sent to him had never existed. Neither mentioned it, nor let the existence of it alter their natural behaviours, but let it sit in the back of their minds, smouldering away in the fire, left to dust. And, with the ash blackening the pit of his stomach, Melbourne kissed the Queen's hand, careful not to linger for a second too long. In the care he took, he pulled away far too soon.

"How is Brocket Hall, Lord Melbourne?" she asked, moving to the desk where a stack of papers lay for her to sign, approve, disapprove, disregard, regard, or simply chuckle at. She sat, and invited Lord Melbourne to sit with her as he replied,

"As beautiful as in my childhood, Ma'am," he recalled fondly in an ease of tone that struck Victoria as being almost wistful. He had never spoken of his childhood before. In fact, it was a subject that he steered clear away from, like all subjects of his past. He had occasionally indulged Victoria in a tale of his late wife or son, but these were understandably brief and agonisingly clipped. And, now, in the golden-green of his eyes, in the little morning light dissipating through the windows, she could see a million stories untold. She wished nothing more than to hear them.

"Your childhoods were spent at Brocket Hall?" Victoria pressed, gently, not to cause him distress which she knew would prompt a quick 'but no more about me' and then a swift change of the subject. He had avoided topics she wished to hear about many times through that method. His eyes did not glaze over, his mouth his not clamp shut, he remained open and dream-like, and took a long breath before speaking again.

"It was built for my grandfather who lived there, and my late father after him. I have many memories of summers there in my youth. It really was a beautiful place. It still is. It catches the light. Scatters it."

Victoria's breath quickened and, unconsciously, she leant in.

"My mother took great pride in the house, she adored it. As did the Prince Regent, when he could spare the time to grace us with his presence."

" _Uncle George?_ " Victoria cried, a passion seizing her. She did not know Lord Melbourne to have been so well acquainted with her uncle: to have had him visiting his residence, when Melbourne was only a child? Why had he not told her before?

"Precisely," he replied, "I'm afraid your uncle wasn't the most welcome dinner guest as far as I was concerned. I am sure you can recall the sound of his chewing, and the pitch his voice reached after a few too many glasses of port!" Victoria laughed a little giddily – a result of not truly laughing in a long time. Melbourne laughed with her. Their humours melded in the air, light as a feather, and suddenly the room seemed like one they used to share. A meeting of two equal minds, harmoniously. It was a room they both missed, dearly.

"I remember it well! I always thought he sounded like a boar!" Victoria giggled. Melbourne should not have laughed at a joke so immature, and at a monarch's expense, but the observation was surprisingly accurate for a girl who must have been so young – so he chuckled. "It would be enough to put me off my dinner!"

"I would argue with you, your Majesty, but I can remember my own food being left on the plate," he said. Victoria chortled at the thought of a young Lord Melbourne leaving food on his plate. It seemed to childish, so unlike him, but she knew of course that he was a child too once. What an amusing thought it was!

"I hope I will never eat quite so much as him, or drink quite so much!" Victoria stated, straightening up and choking back more giggles that threatened to burst from her. Melbourne was more composed with his laughter, but he thought there must have been something in the air, for he was becoming quite uncontrollable upon a subject which his sense understood to be mildly amusing at best.

"I am sure, Ma'am, that you are proving to be a far more responsible monarch than those before you!"

"I certainly hope so. However, I cannot say I had the wisest start! I cannot believe how I acted at my Coronation Ball!" Her voice fluttered with her laughter. It was the most beautiful noise to Melbourne's ears. "Do you remember, Lord M?" Melbourne's face flushed. He could remember every moment. With hardly enough breath in his lungs to put voice to his words, he uttered,

"I remember."

Melbourne's eyes caught hers and she felt her body, heavy, suddenly, falling towards his as if put to sleep. She was waking dreaming, and lost in those eyes which had her captive. She could feel her desires come creeping up on her. She had felt this way before, when she was drunk at the ball, and that same feeling clasped her now, doping her, and making her stomach twist. She swallowed the dryness down her throat and, dismissing the folly of her heart and the blushing of her cheeks, she straightened herself up again. She was a married woman, now.

Melbourne's pulse took longer to return to normal. His desires creeped more slowly than hers.

Knowing that the subject must be changed, Victoria giggled again – uncomfortably – and asked,

"Why did the Prince Regent attend dinners at Brocket Hall?"

Suddenly, as if a fever had been brought upon him by an omnipotent force, his eyes glazed over and his mouth clamped shut and Victoria's lull turned to dread as she thought she was losing him. His face clouded over with thought. Feeling diminished. She wanted to reach out a hand and clasp him by the shoulder, tighten her grip until it brought him pain, beg him not to change the subject, beg him to tell her more: about his childhood, his ambitions, the dinners with her uncle, what he thought of him, what his mother was like, what his father was like, how Brocket Hall has changed, how he has changed. But, of course, such actions would be improper. Not the actions of a Queen to her Prime Minister, she reminded herself.

Her heart wept as she could feel the moment passing away: that small window they shared, glimpsing into a past lost that once held many more moments like that one; they would have laughed just the same, and Victoria felt again what it was like to be a young, unmarried Queen, with only her Prime Minister to guide her, her dearest friend at her side, those eyes on her.

But, just as she was despairing, he opened his mouth and began to speak, hesitantly, "My mother had a very… particular… relationship with King George." He did not know why he chose to spoke, when he knew quietness would be easier for him.

"What kind of relationship?" Victoria asked, desperate to continue the conversation. So rapid was her speech that it was almost inaudible, and so hushed.

Melbourne had always wished and, as far as he knew, had well-practised an open and honest conference with the Queen. He did not lie to her, or obscure the truth and tried to always be succinct and clear with her. He believed that men who waffle with women are the kind of men who are so deeply insecure of their own masculinity that they fear a woman's knowledge will rid them of it. He knew Victoria to be quick, and fiercely intelligent, and wished to treat her as such. He had occasionally informed her on subjects of a sexual nature, when necessary, where many of the Queen's party would shy away. He did not believe that, simply because she was a Queen, she had no need to know of such things. In fact, he believed that – as a Queen – it is necessary for her to understand the world she governs. The world, as Melbourne understood it, was full of ambition, death, and sex. Three things he knew the Queen needed to learn of. His sense told him that this was simply one of those lessons he hoped to enrich her with. But there was something about the closeness of this matter to himself that made his heart obstinate and his skin cold.

He could remember lazy summer days at Eton, gasping in the heat of a classroom and the clamouring bodies of boys all pressing on him, depriving him of air, and having the rumour of his brother, George, being the illegitimate son of George IV making fire in his mind, catching on the drums of his ears and making him nauseated. It made him remember at the times he'd seen his mother fawn over the Prince Regent, and his touching of her. It summoned questions of his own legitimacy. It made him feel wretched. It made him angry.

And, now, seeing his sweet Victoria – wide-eyed and attentive, with all the wondrous interest of a young girl in her studies – he felt obliged to unfurl a story that had haunted him for many years. He'd bundled it up and left it to the cobwebs. He took a breath before dusting it off in the clearing of his throat, and speaking to her in a low voice,

"I believe, and there is evidence to support my belief, that my mother was George IV's mistress."

He was matter-of-fact when he unfolded the demon to her that had followed him since childhood. Victoria turned red, and leant back quickly, exclaiming in a noise that could not be interpreted as a word at all, or at least not a word in the dictionary. She could not look at Lord Melbourne, but bore her gaze into her skirt. She could feel the flesh in her cheeks burning. Her throat clenched. This was not right. Not at all. She wished she hadn't prodded so inelegantly. She wished she hadn't been so damned curious. She recognised the hurt in his tone.

A creeping feeling of being responsible ran into her blood. She knew, of course, that she was not at all responsible for this eventuality of the meeting of Lord Melbourne's mother and her uncle but the fact that it was her uncle that had caused Melbourne distress wounded her. She felt compelled to apologise to him for it, but understood that he would only see that as foolish. Lord Melbourne knew that Victoria was nothing like her uncle; he did not need her to remind him. He could see it in her face. Feel it inside him.

"Do… all men of status have mistresses?" Victoria asked. It was unprecedented, and the question fell heavy into the conversation, and weighed down the air on their shoulders. Victoria had asked it in pure innocence, curiosity, and Melbourne understood that so, after swallowing his pride, he took the time to try to explain to her.

"Not all men, Ma'am," he coughed. Victoria was not satisfied with the answer. She felt he was not being concise, or forward, or matter-of-fact, or open, or honest with her. It could have made her angry but she understood that she must not feel angry with her Prime Minister, as these short meetings once or twice a month were their only contact. She was, however, firm with him. Melbourne recognised when she was being firm: her face hardened, her blue eyes turned steely, her voice became clipped like a monarch rather than soft like a friend. It made his heart flutter.

"But _most_ men?"

Melbourne sighed,

"You understand, Ma'am, that men have certain… _needs_ that often cannot be ignored. Many very busy men find they must relieve their stress through recreation. Some men turn to tobacco, some to alcohol, some to gambling," he said to her, feeling the intensity of his close proximity to her constricting around his ribcage. He struggled not to make his breathing sound laboured. Soft and slow. In and out. "Many men of wealth or status who are in a position to acquire a mistress find the prospect very inviting."

Nodding, slowly, to show her understanding, but face hard as slate, she asked,

"Does Albert have a mistress?"

Melbourne spluttered. Victoria remained still and serious. The gravity of her voice disturbed him. He hoped she was joking. She was not.

"I cannot say it is information I am privy too, Ma'am. If it is worrying your Majesty, I suggest you raise the subject with him."

"But do you think he does?" Victoria was insistent.

"I'm afraid I cannot say, Ma'am."

"Please, Lord Melbourne, be frank with me."

Afraid of the consequence of his restraint, he swallowed his pride and replied,

"It would not surprise me if he did, your Majesty. As I said, many men do."

The coagulate air thickened still between them and Melbourne was sure that if he decided to reach out a hand to touch the Queen, it would move slowly as if fighting through tar. The breath, coming fast through each of their mouths, made the air hotter. Perhaps drugged by the heaviness and thickness of the air, or inspired by some deep longing inside her, the Queen spoke,

"Do _you_ have a mistress?"

Melbourne almost choked on air. Victoria's voice was hushed into a whisper that pierced Melbourne, making him shiver. He looked to her, right in the eye, and held that gaze for a length of time he could not discern, unable to tear it away. The look on his eye was peculiar, and Victoria had never seen an expression like it before. Confused and afraid, but passionate, blisteringly intense. His mouth did not move but his eyes told her what she needed to know. She felt bile rising in her throat and her head begin to spin. She took a long breath through her nose and closed her eyes, trying to stop the world from reeling. She felt sick. Her stomach clenched and a pain scraped at her.

"In the past, Ma'am, I have."

Victoria rose suddenly to her feet and, garbling an apology, she fled the room, and threw up in a vase on the way from the drawing room to Lehzen.

Melbourne was standing, looking at the door where the Queen had flown from, which was now shut. He had heard her scuffling down the hall, but could not hear it any longer. His heart was kicking up a marching beat that his feet were insensitive to. He had considered running after her, but knew it was improper, so remained still, staring at the door, heart pounding and cheeks still burning. Had it been so distressing for her, to hear of his private affairs? He did not know whether he should feel offended at her visceral reaction. Or, perhaps.

A few moments later, Lehzen entered the room,

"I am sorry, Lord Melbourne, but the Queen has fallen ill."

Melbourne nodded. It was not like the Queen to have such a delicate constitution. It was uncharacteristic. Surely his words had not brought it on. She had heard of similar things before, and never fallen ill as a result of it. It was almost as if she was-

"I suggest you-"

"Has the Queen been ill for a while, Baroness?" Melbourne asked. Lehzen seemed indignant at the Prime Minister's questioning into the private matters of the palace, but she answered in a voice as hard as stone, and as cold.

"She has suffered certain spells recently. But nothing I cannot handle, I assure you."

"When you say recently?"

"The past week."

After a long-suffering sigh that met Melbourne's years more than any other aspect of him, there was a long pause as he selected his words with care. He was careful not to be too forward, knowing that – particularly now with the Prince in residence – he was a guest in this palace, not a firm friend. The Baroness was growing impatient, and Lord Melbourne knew that she was not particularly fond of him at the best of times. He gathered his words in tentative tone, and spoke them with care,

"I trust that the Queen and the Prince consummated their marriage, Baroness?"

Lehzen practically gasped at the question, almost staggering backwards into a bust sculpture, and knocking it clear of the podium and on to the ground to smash into a million shards. She huffed, and pushed her skirt down as she mumbled,

"I do not think such matters are of anyone else's interest but the Queen and her husband, Lord Melbourne! I think it would be best if you-"

"If the Queen is pregnant, Baroness Lehzen, it is in the interest of the Prime Minister!" he cried, the loss of patient causing him to advance on the Baroness. It was not in his character to speak so forcefully, or to lose his patience so, or to advance so swiftly on a lady. The force of his words staggered Lehzen almost as much as the question he had previously asked, and the realisation that the pregnancy of the Queen was a possibility, and not just a possibility but an incoming threat. Surely not. Surely Victoria would have realised by now, and told her. She surely couldn't be keeping it from her. Baroness Lehzen felt a horrible coldness rising in her.

"Pregnant?" she whispered, as if Victoria could overhear it from her chamber where she had retired. Melbourne face did not waver for a second, nor his resolve falter.

"Has no one realised before now? I noticed something different about her from the moment she walked in!" Melbourne exclaimed, rubbing his forehead, brow knotted in a weave of creases. "I do not believe the Queen knows, but I suggest a doctor is called for." He spoke like a Prime Minister now, urbane, and full of the sense that is required to lead the government of the most powerful nation on the globe. It did not matter how his heart ached to think of the Queen and her husband's child. He knew he would never father a child of hers, and it was a foolish thing to have ever desired. All that mattered now was the safety of the Queen and her heir. The safety of his monarch. The monarch of Great Britain. Less the friend, more the sovereign. That was the duty of the Prime Minister and he was fulfilling it with potent resolve.

"Of course, Lord Melbourne," was Lehzen's reply. His Prime Ministerial manner had the desired effect: one that he often wished the Tories would give. Lehzen curtsied reluctantly and turned to leave the room. Melbourne was still stood. He noticed he was shaking, and clenched his fist, willing the shaking to stop. Dash pattered into the room a few moments later through the door that Lehzen had left open in her fluster, and the little dog approached Melbourne, and began to lick at his shoes – an impromptu shoe-shine. It forced a smile from him.

He did not know at first whether he should leave, but after a while in which he was unattended, he gathered his coat and slinked from the palace with not a single person noticing he had left. Save, of course, Victoria: who watched his carriage leave through the window of her chamber, feeling more sick than she had been before. She wished to call from the window. She did not.

It turned out that the Queen was pregnant. The first child to come of the marriage between Alexandrina Victoria and Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The heir to the throne.

The news was met with wondrous joy by most. Her mother cried when she was told the news exclaiming that she was _'_ _so proud of her little Drina!'_. Uncle Leopold congratulated Albert with a swift pat on the back: job well done. Victoria's ladies feigned their excitement, but knew too well of the Queen's true desires, and so their congratulations were interluded with sad looks exchanged between them when no one else was looking. Emma Portman was too aware of the damage this would cause to the pair of them. Harriet Sutherland could feel it, too, in Emma's masked sighs and tired eyes.

They looked to the Queen, holding her stomach tightly, being fawned over and swooned over by many different faces, not a single one a friend to her, and they could see the tightness of her jaw, and the tears sitting behind her eyes. They could hear Melbourne's sighs from miles away.

Melbourne had wished that they had told the Queen whilst he was at the palace, but such an expectation was an unrealistic one. It was arrogant, too. He wished to be the first person to congratulate the Queen on the good news. As he read about it in the newspaper from the chill of Brocket Hall, he imagined how she must be glowing.

He knew that, in two weeks' time, the congratulation he would give would mean nothing to her – as she would have heard a hundred just like it before.


	3. Child

When she was not being treated like a hull carrying precious cargo or being fawned over like some pretty doll in the window of a shop, Victoria found that the life of a pregnant Queen was a very dull one which could only be filled with excess of thinking which – for a woman to whom heartache had become a friend – was not a pleasurable pursuit. She was bundled up indoors for fear of her damaging the cargo her womb held, and stopped from doing all the things she loved best. When she wished to go horse-riding, she was told it was most unwise to do so. When she expressed a desire to take an open carriage through the park, she was told that she could not. When she asked to simply take a walk around the gardens, she was advised to stay indoors.

In her days caged inside the palace stuffing marron glacés into her mouth, Victoria's mind often wandered back to the one subject she could never escape, and yet never face. Her dear Lord Melbourne. Her mind had been busy working through what they had shared that day when her pregnancy became a fact to her. She had met with the Prime Minister since, but the meetings had been brief and impersonal as they both knew they should always be. The meetings had not been nearly as insightful, or nearly as agonising, as that one had been.

She reviewed the incidents in her head time and time again, replaying the information, and analysing what she already knew of her Prime Minister, and what he was yet to tell her.

She knew that his mother was a woman of great social standing: Lady Melbourne. She had a reputation about her that Victoria was already aware of. She had heard a story, once, over dinner, spoken by a person who clearly hadn't tapered their speech for the presence of a young princess, of Lady Melbourne presenting herself, entirely naked, on a great silver platter for the first Viscount Melbourne. Whilst her mother had practically cried out, nearly choking on her food, laying great awkward hands all over her daughter as if that would stop her from remembering what she had just heard, the little Victoria smiled at the folly of such a thing. She wondered what sort of side dishes would accompany her.

The first Viscount Melbourne, she knew little of, probably because he was not a man of such flamboyancy or charm as his wife. He was a politician, and a Whig, the same as his son came to be, and she could vaguely remember being shown a cameo of him once and noticing that he had a very, very small mouth.

Lord Melbourne's mouth was not as small as his father's must have been. She thought that strange.

Perhaps his father was not his father. The thought almost made her gasp and spit her marron glacé on to her bulging lap. He did say how his mother was Uncle George's mistress! Oh, surely not! If that were so, then Lord Melbourne may be of royal blood. And, if Lord Melbourne was of royal blood then he would be her cousin.

 _I do not think marriage between first cousins is wise, Ma'am._

She felt quite sick, and took the platter of marrons glacés and put them on the table far away from where she sat. The sickly saccharine smell of them was making her feel queasier. She had already ruined a vase in her pregnancy, she did not wish to ruin another, or a carpet, for that matter. She took a few long and steady breaths with her eyes closed until the world stop spinning and her stomach ceased heaving.

She opened her eyes with a clearer head.

Victoria then came to a decision that was more becoming of her naïve, foolish eighteen-year-old self than the married woman she thought she was becoming. She decided, with a fair helping of strong-headed resolve, that she would visit Brocket Hall. She did not see any problem with a weekend visit. Indeed, she was a married woman, but she also knew that there was a room at Brocket Hall that was always prepared for her, and she knew that her Prime Minister would enjoy the company, and she knew she could take a carriage down and ensure that it would hardly cause a stir, and she also knew that her mind would never be at rest unless she could gather more information from Lord Melbourne. She had unanswered questions and hoped, in the privacy of his own home, he would divulge her in some answers.

It would not be a visit of a woman to her lover, she told herself, ensuring herself that her decision was a wise one. This would simply be a Queen visiting her Prime Minister on matters of friendship.

And, besides, it did not say anywhere in the English constitution that the Queen must take her husband with her everywhere. It would be understandable, surely, for her to request a quiet weekend in the country to discuss matters of politics with her Prime Minister. The library at Brocket Hall was quite extensive, she would tell anyone who questioned her, and she believed she might find some answers to her questions about… about… the law, or something like that.

When she expressed these wishes to Lehzen, she was met with the usual expressions of concern, and wishes for her to change her mind, but she replied simply that she was the Queen, and she wished to go to Brocket Hall and see her Prime Minister. It was a statement that could not be refuted. Anyone who did so, feared trial for treason. And, so, the carriage was prepared and the next morning, Victoria rode down to Brocket Hall. She was asked if she wished a message to be sent to Lord Melbourne, preparing him for her arrival, but she declined. It would give him a little excitement, she thought, in these lonely days.

The carriage ride along the country roads leading to Brocket Hall was excessively romantic. She tried to tell herself that it wasn't, simply to make herself feel less guilty, but the little sunlight that brushed the top of the hill that stretched seemingly endlessly back into a throng of woodland fell onto her face, and the faces of daffodils beside the road, and she felt a twine tugging at her heart, tethering her to what she denied herself.

 _What the world denied her._

And, pushing itself to the forefront of her mind were the words that now lay in ash: I love you, I love you, I love you. She tried to erase these words, knowing the danger they held, but they refused to burn away.

The carriage stopped outside Brocket Hall, and Victoria began to wonder whether he may have already noticed her arrival, and what he was thinking. Or, perhaps, he was reading a book in his library, or writing one, and her announcement would shock him. It would not be the first time such a thing had happened, she thought, recalling fondly a time when she caught him, unravelled, in his office. How he had leapt from his seat! It was quite comical, and still made her laugh to this day.

Lord Melbourne clearly had not noticed her arrival, as she was met at the door by a butler, whose eyes doubled in size to see the Queen. He exclaimed,

"Your Ma-!"

" _Shh!_ " Victoria hushed, leaning into the butler and whispering, "I want my arrival to be a surprise!" She stifled a giggle and the butler tittered awkwardly, not knowing the appropriate response to the Queen's fun and games. The Queen, herself, had not participated in fun and games for quite a while, and it felt a little strange, but exciting. She felt eighteen once more.

The butler accommodated for her, opening the door for her, taking her bonnet, and showing her to the library where he assured her the Prime Minister was working. He asked her, still trying to keep his voice low, if she wished to be announced to him. She replied, a little cunning smirk on her face, that she did not, and told the butler that he could leave. She and Lord Melbourne were forced into such seriousness in the confines of the palace. The same rules did not apply here. When she pushed gently on the door, it creaked. She sucked her breath in, not wanting him to turn around and see her just yet. She poked her head around the door, scanning across bookcase after bookcase until her eyes fell on the greying curls of her dear Lord M, facing away from the door in his armchair. She edged into the room, desperately forcing her giggles back down her throat, clamping her lips tightly together, focusing on her breathing.

"What is it, Jakes?" he asked. His voice sounded so harsh. It was never so harsh when he spoke to her. In fact, Victoria always noted how soft his voice was. She rather liked him talking to her harshly. It made her skin tingle.

"There is a visitor for you, sir," Victoria replied in very best gruff man voice. She based the voice on Lord Conyngham, who she always thought sounded humorously masculine – as if he was afraid people would doubt his masculinity, so had to perform it the way a cheap actor would. There was a certain hitch in Lord Melbourne's position, but he did not turn around, but instead coughed and asked,

"Are you ill, Jakes?"

"A tad, sir."

"Who's the visitor?"

"An old friend, sir." The gruff voice was wavering in favour of giggling.

"For God's sake-" Melbourne began, losing his temper and rising from his armchair with gusto, turning around with an expression as hard as stone before he saw the Queen and released an audible gasp, staggering back. " _Y-your Majesty!_ " he cried, fumbling into something resembling a bow, his eyes blown up into a size bigger than Jakes' were: a feat the Queen found most surprising. "Forgive me, Ma'am, for speaking to you in such a way." She allowed herself to laugh, quite brazenly, and she approached the Prime Minister, her hand outstretched. Remembering himself, he approached her and took her hand, kissing it. Quite different to the exchanges in the palace, he held her hand for longer, and savoured the contact. And he was smiling at her more often. And their manners were easier.

He mentioned her swelling tummy and how radiant she was looking. She told him that she was not enjoying pregnancy. She told him that everyone was treating her like a vessel carrying precious cargo. He laughed at the metaphor, and she laughed too although she did not find it funny.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Ma'am?" he asked, offering a chair to the Queen which she took, before seating himself opposite her. Victoria liked how real he seemed here. She had not seen him so comfortable since Albert had arrived for the first time, what seemed like years ago.

"I had things I wished to talk to you about, Lord M. It couldn't wait. I hoped to stay the weekend, if that is possible. There is much we need to discuss and I know there is a room prepared for my visits."

"Yes, of course, Ma'am. You are welcome at Brocket Hall whenever you wish," Lord Melbourne replied, hiding the unease he felt at the prospect of sharing his house for a weekend with a married woman. Not just any married woman but the married Queen. Not just any married Queen but the married Queen who he was ardently in love with and who, although she did not say it, he knew to be in love with him. If anyone found out, it would be scandalous – even if the conversations were political, not criminal. "What did you wish to discuss?"

"Oh, political matters. The usual, really. We'll have plenty of time for that! Isn't it better to settle in first?"

"You understand, Ma'am, that any political questions you have can be put to Sir Robert Peel. He is at your disposal. There is no need to trouble yourself to visit me here."

"Oh! Lord Melbourne! Of course I do not wish to discuss politics!" Victoria cried, throwing her hands in the air like a mother with her irritable child. Melbourne fell silent, scorned. "And, besides, you know that I do not like Sir Robert half so well as I like you." He lightened again in the wake of her flattery.

"If it is not politics you wish to discuss, Ma'am," Melbourne asked, leaning forward on his seat, "then, may I ask, why have you taken the trouble to ride down to Brocket Hall?" Victoria sighed. Could he stop asking questions and being hesitant for one second, and just allow himself to live?

"Frankly, Lord M, I wished for a weekend spent with a friend. I do not have so many friends anymore. And, whenever I see you, there are always eyes on us, and we never get to say what we wish to say. Don't you agree?"

Lord Melbourne's mouth became dry as he recalled the letter that she had written him.

"I do not know what you mean, Ma'am."

"A few months ago: you were telling me about your mother, and we were interrupted. It has been troubling me that, although we both call each other friends, I hardly know anything about you besides that which I can find in books and through gossip! I have told you everything about me, Lord M! And you never return the favour."

"I'm afraid, Ma'am, that you would not be interested in my life."

"Oh, nonsense!" she laughed. "Why don't we test that theory out, Lord M?" She flashed him a smile, bewitching as she could muster, and he laughed, sinking back into the chair with his hands placed firmly on his knees. He fell into a pool of light, and the resulting effect on his eyes made Victoria's laugh dwindle away, and knocked the breath from her lungs, clouding in the air. He raised his arms at her as if to say 'go ahead' and Victoria raised her eyebrows. It was strange. At the palace, she could think of a million different questions she wished to ask him and, now, faced with the awaiting ears, she could not think of a single one. She did not think he would allow her to ask anything. He never had done before.

To be frank, she had never tried before.

"You told me you spent your childhood here." Lord Melbourne nodded, looking fondly around him at the library: the pale blue walls dotted with squares of sunlight, the red carpet that was once plush beneath his small bare feet, the vases, and the portraits of people he had never met but were as familiar as friends to him, the white and gold of the bookcases on all four sides and the Chippendale bookcase as the jewel in the crown. "What was that like?"

"Idyllic," he said, quite simply, as if the praise were easily given. Victoria half-smiled, feeling the weight of a thousand memories pressing down on her, locked within every wall and cabinet in Brocket Hall. She could hear the laughter of the late Elizabeth Lamb, as she watched her sons bounding through the house without a single care or a single thought for their futures, what the world had prepared for them, and how they would find it. She could feel the dewy spring breeze passing through the fresh blossom trees brushing the windows. She could feel the light being caught. _Felt it scatter._ "My mother had a knack for the theatrical. Only out there she-"

"Show me," Victoria prompted, biting her lip, almost shaking with her anticipation. She could feel him opening up – like a peony, slowly. He stood up and led her into the hall, and through to the ballroom. Oh, it was a breath-taking sight! A great chandelier rained crystals, shattering the light into a thousand glimmers, across the ceiling which had been painted with figures of handsome ladies cloaked in silk, brandishing brazen torches, summoning the sunrise, and bearded men who seemed to fly against a pale sky, reaching out for a wisp of cloud. Victoria could hardly turn her gaze from it.

"The ceiling is half of the expense of the entire house."

"Who would spend so much on a ceiling?" Victoria cried.

"Is it not worth the expense, Ma'am?" Melbourne asked, chuckling, casting his gaze up to the Caro's favourite image: the red-skirted woman lying on the ground.

"No. No, it is quite beautiful, Lord M. Quite beautiful."

Melbourne smiled inwardly, glowing a little, glad that the Queen was fond of it. He brought her to the end of the ballroom to a small alcove that Victoria acknowledged would have held an orchestra when balls were held here. She wondered how long it had been since music had graced these walls, and humoured the people living on the ceiling.

"Just here, my mother insisted we perform. I can hardly remember the play now, something of more art and less matter, I believe! I was never made to be an actor. Neither were my siblings. My mother would sit at the very front, right there, and she'd whisper our cues and the lines we forgot, and cheer us endlessly. She was very fond of our little theatre." Melbourne walked into the alcove and stood, facing out, just as he had done. Though, he was a good deal taller now, and the house was a good deal quieter. Victoria loved how he spoke of his youth. He sounded so happy, his voice fringed with humour, laced with the light that bore him into the world and housed those youthful summers. He smiled and the smile was real.

Victoria and Melbourne proceeded through the house, talking all the while of the particulars of Lord Melbourne's life. He answered everything, without question, and fully.

"When I went to Eton, I missed it, unimaginably. I became very homesick. My mother visited me often, though. She always told me she was 'harbouring my greatness'. I do not think I was ever able to reach what she expected of me."

"What a silly thing to say, Lord Melbourne. You are the Prime Minister of the greatest Empire on Earth! You are the dearest friend of the greatest Queen that this country will ever see." Melbourne laughed,

"How modest of you, Ma'am." Victoria stopped walking, beside one of the upstairs windows looking out on to the gardens and the pretty flowers they harboured. Melbourne continued for a second, before realising that the Queen had stopped and, fearing that he had spoken out of turn, he turned, and approached her, standing beside the window, facing her. After a brief moment's sternness, her face gleamed with a smile brighter than the sun which gave light to it.

"It is true, though, isn't it? And I would not be nearly as successful if it were not for you, Lord M." The words brought a rose to his cheeks, and forced his gaze downwards, into the folds of her skirt rather than the blue of her eyes. "You are the making of me." _And the undoing_ , she thought, finding her heart protesting against her lack of action. He was so lovely. So lovely to her. She could hardly keep her affection inside her head. It threatened to spill like a swelling tide from her mouth: a torrent of adoration all for him. He made her feel like the most beautiful thing, and he was exactly that to her. She felt like she could say anything with him. His eyes cast the world cascading open to her, and she wished to delve into it.

"If you do not mind me asking, Lord M, you said your mother was Uncle George's mistress. But she was a married woman, was she not?" A flash of something grave passed his face.

"That is right, Ma'am. My mother was a good woman, but faithful she was not. There were affairs. My father did the same. It was acceptable," he said. He thought about telling her of his affairs, but knew that some aspects of his life were better left unspoken. He could not bear to damage the Queen's opinion of him.

" _You are not his?_ " she asked. Her forwardness was impolite, but he found it charming. She may have grown into a woman, but she had not yet learnt the skill of tact.

"No, Ma'am. They did not meet until after I was born. If you are afraid of us being cousins, I can assure you, we are not," he explained. A heaviness formed between their two souls. Melbourne was glad, although he knew he could not marry the Queen, that it was possible. Victoria sensed his gladness, and knew exactly why it was.

Her bosom ached to be unclasped, releasing her enveloped heart, and letting the flood pour from it. The heat of her ardour gave fuel to her next question,

"You confessed that you have had a mistress. Was that whilst you were married?" Victoria asked with not a jot of condemnation in her voice, just light-hearted curiosity. Melbourne, for the first time that day, hesitated before answering. His mouth opened but no noise passed. Victoria began to fear that she had pressed too hard. He forced air through his lungs and out of his mouth,

"Yes, yes, it was."

"Ah."

"You understand, Ma'am, that-"

"I do not think any less of you, Lord M. Do not worry."

"Oh."

A pause ensued.

"A married man can indulge himself in romantic liaisons, yes?" she asked, eyes fluttering between Lord Melbourne's eyes and his lips. Her skin shivered on her chest, rising in unsteady breaths over her neckline. Melbourne nodded, swallowing hard. "As can a married woman?"

Her hand caught his, as if reaching for a wisp of cloud, which dissipated as soon as her fingers caught it.

" _Ma'am_ ," he uttered, without breath enough to make his plea forceful.

"Lord M," she whispered, the words becoming hisses in his ears as they ignited a fire that he had forced into dormancy for a long time. He closed his eyes, whistling a breath through his nostrils, chest collapsing, ribcage shrinking, pulse throbbing through the paper-thin skin on his wrist. He felt a finger there. Not his own. He shrank back, throwing himself into a garbled speech,

"I believe you are tired, Ma'am, you have travelled quite a way. Your room is always ready for you, perhaps it would be best for you to rest. I will have something prepared for dinner though, due to the circumstances, I cannot promise anything exceptional. We will talk more then."

"Nonsense, I am quite well enough to talk to you."

She said that word 'talk' as if it was the simplest thing in the world. As if they were just talking, like two people always talk, just like it was harmless and innocent and good. She said it as if she wasn't bringing him the most agonising pain. She said it as if they weren't bleeding for each other. Melbourne stepped back from her again and, half in anger, he cried,

"Why do you wish to torture yourself? Why do you wish to torture me? You have a husband, of your years, who loves you. Can we not both be satisfied in that?"

"I do not know, Lord Melbourne, can you?" she asked, rage sitting beneath the skin, dormant whilst the sadness raged above. Melbourne's face, which had been churning like the tides between confusion, regret, desperation, suddenly fell soft and still and his eyes grew sad, just like hers. They told her the answer: of course he could not. "Don't you see? We may be able to act the part of Queen and Prime Minister well but we will never be satisfied."

He said nothing.

Crying out in frustration, advancing violently on Lord Melbourne, grasping his hands, and bringing them to her face, she forced his stubborn fingers to hold her cheeks, his reluctant thumbs to brush her lips, and his smallest finger to stroke against the downy hair behind her ears. She spoke lightly and quietly, but the words meant more than anything she had uttered before that moment.

"Do you not want this, Lord M?"

He looked down at her, the head of the most beautiful flower between his hands, blossoming, velvety to the touch, scouring him for love that he could not give her.

"Of course, I do, Ma'am. It is all I want."

"Then allow it," she begged, "Allow it." He looked more warmly at her, held her face without her guidance for a moment, ghosted his breath along her neck. She thought he would kiss her, and she fell softly into him, crumpling in his touch, awaiting it: the moment his kiss would come to meet her. His hands moved to her shoulders, straightening her weakened frame, before he said,

"You are tired, Ma'am." Her frame became tense.

"You think that just because I am allowing myself, ourselves, a little bit of happiness, I must be tired? Not thinking straight?"

"Do you really believe that us conducting an illicit affair will bring us happiness?" he cried, relinquishing her from his grip, staggering back as if she had burnt his hands. "You said it yourself: we will never be satisfied. Not in this life. Not under these circumstances."

"Doesn't it drive you mad?" she cried at him. "The past. Don't you feel it seeking you out, in the dead of night, when you have convinced yourself that you are safe? When you have told yourself that you are ready to move on? When you think you have almost forgotten? Don't you feel it _creeping_? Why can't we give in?" He knew exactly what it felt like: the past creeping to him. Not a single second passed between Victoria's last syllable and what was thrown into the stillness next by a man in anguish.

"I love you!" he cried. He looked straight at her. No glances away. No mincing his words. No fidgeting. No 'Ma'am'. No pretence or kingdom or government. Simply those three words that had never passed the air between them. And now they had. In a moment that went far too quickly. And there was no fanfare. No choir of angels. No running into his arms. No heavenly sunlight. No marriage. No children. No life together. She could not respond. "But you were right when you said that we cannot act on what we feel. Not whilst you are married. We must be brave."

"I love you, too," she wept, finally finding strength to speak.

"I know," he sighed. "I know."

The Queen and her Prime Minister decided mutually that a weekend at Brocket Hall would not be advisable, or possible, for their busy schedules must not be neglected. It was late, so the Queen spent the night at Brocket Hall, alone and quiet, before taking the carriage back to Buckingham Palace the next morning.

They did not meet again until the Queen delivered a child. A girl. Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise. And, then, they did not have time to talk.


	4. Illness

Victoria should have been glad that she was becoming more and more like her heroine. But she noticed that being her heroine brought with it unimaginable pain. She studied the portrait well, daily, when her daughter was with the nanny and Albert was out riding and she resigned herself to her normal melancholy. She had grown very sad since the birth of her daughter, and that day spent at Brocket Hall in the summer. She had hardly seen Lord Melbourne as the responsibilities of family and monarchy pressed hard on her shoulders, but she felt his presence there constantly. A weight on her shoulders. A twisting in her stomach. A creeping desire. An unkempt love. A voice whispering in her ear, telling her that she would never be happy. A calling of his heart.

She looked for a very long time at the painted face of Queen Elizabeth. She noticed things which she had never seen before. In the throng of orange hair and jewels that Victoria had always noticed about the portrait before, sat the face of a woman, heartbroken. She, perhaps, could only see it now because she shared in it. That hard line where her mouth should be. The faint circles beneath her eyes through lack of sleep. The grey in her cheeks. The sadness glinting in her eye, threatening to spill. The strength hiding all that is weak.

Victoria wondered what she would look like in portraits to come – wondering whether she, too, would look so sad. Elizabeth pined after a lost love, much like Victoria: that same pain would soon be cast on her face. Oh, she was so tired.

Victoria was reminded of a poem, written by Elizabeth for the departure of the Duke of Anjou or, it had been rumoured, an ode to her dearest Leicester.

 _I grieve and dare not show my discontent,_  
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,  
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,  
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.  
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,  
Since from myself another self I turned.

 _My care is like my shadow in the sun,_  
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,  
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.  
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.  
No means I find to rid him from my breast,  
Till by the end of things it be suppressed.

 _Some gentler passion slide into my mind,_  
For I am soft and made of melting snow;  
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.  
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.  
Or let me live with some more sweet content,  
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

The words beat a drum in her heart, pulsing through the sinews of her, drawing on the love which had grown tired. Elizabeth felt just what she was feeling now. How did she live? Victoria was sure she could not. Oh, she was so tired.

Whenever she tried to tell people, to make at least one other person understand, they reminded her about her daughter.

She looked at her young daughter, and felt nothing. Where she was told to find joy and pride and motherly love, she found emptiness. Her mother cooed and fussed over the little thing but she found herself repulsed. She did not wish to coo at it. She did not wish to fuss over it. She did not wish to have it. She wanted it far away from her, and felt guilty that she wished for such a thing. Albert was besotted with the little thing, but she could not be so endeared. Albert was alone whenever he was with the child. Only one Victoria in his life. Every woman, her mother, her ladies, Emma Portman, and Harriet Sutherland, all told her how lucky she was. She did not feel lucky to be burdened with such a thing after twelve hours of the most agonising pain, nearing death. It was like a shadow, following her, running sticky in her bloodstream. Oh, she was so tired.

Albert knew, of course. He felt his wife's despair, but struggled in his pursuits to comfort her. There were certainly glimmers appearing through the cloud: sweet moments of something like marital bliss. Their marriage was not entirely loveless. Albert wished to make Victoria happy, and succeeded on occasion. They went out for rides together, and talked amiably when the sun was meshing the land. He kissed her sometimes and she reciprocated. They played the piano together when they had the time, and their tempos were perfectly matched. He told her she was beautiful, and it made her smile. But all these moments clouded over, yet again, when Victoria was ever faced with a mention, or a glimpse, of her Prime Minister.

He could feel her sometimes, slipping away.

He would hold her hand and it would feel warm and supple, and he would consider the happiness in marriage that may be waxing. She would turn to him and her blue eyes would be soulful, deeper than the ocean to which they garnered their colour, and be creased with contentedness. And, then, as if a cloud had drawn over her or ink had bled across her, that light would fade, and her hand would turn rigid. She'd become very cold. And she would act harshly towards him. Heart as cold as skin.

Albert was not a fool. He was just quiet. And Victoria took this as his ignorance. Whenever he saw her eyes fill with tears at a mention of Lord Melbourne's name, he would feel his throat clench, but not say a thing.

He thought long and hard, on those nights when they lay together in bed, separated by what seemed like an endless spread of bedsheet, about confronting her. Telling her that he knew. He knew that she was hopelessly in love with William Lamb. He knew how she blushed when his letters arrived. He knew how she would spent hours in his company, when the box of papers was only shallow. He knew what they talked of. He knew how they talked. He knew how Victoria was agonised with missing him now that her child had come. He knew that she wished to marry him. He knew that she thought about him, sometimes, in the noiseless night-time, when she thought he was asleep.

He also knew of Lord Melbourne's feelings. Melbourne was less outward with his longings. Victoria, he could read like a book but Melbourne was a more difficult puzzle. But Albert had become quite accustomed to the tides that changed upon his expression. He knew how his eyebrow raised when Victoria entered his field of vision. He knew how the corner of his mouth would twitch. He knew how his left hand would clench itself into a fist. He knew how his eyes would glaze when she turned away from him. He knew the grey of his complexion and the hollow of his cheek. The most potent lovesickness. The harshest sadness.

Neither paid attention to him, Albert, who was just as sick and just as sad. Unloved, just as they were.

Albert knew how she stiffened in the bedchamber. And Albert knew how her body convulsed at learning of her second pregnancy.

This time, instead of playing along with the riotous joy and parties and congratulations and hugs and kisses and touches all cloying and hot and tight, Victoria stood like a beacon in the throng of them all. Blank. Unwavering. She felt the buffeting of pregnancy beating against her, but did not surrender to it.

She received a letter from Lord M. The first she had received from him in a length of time that had seemed to stretch for years. She had hoped for some sort of apology, although she knew, deep down, that he had no reason to apologise to her. It had been her in the wrong. But she would never apologise for what she had done. She had hoped for a declaration of love, or a letter of consent, allowing what they both wished, but she knew that was impossible. Such an eventuality would only occur at night, in her fervent mind, against the echo of mill wheels. The letter was, in fact, a simple congratulation for a pregnancy that she knew he was not happy about. The letter was written in the early hours of a morning, beside an empty bottle of port and a glass that had only just been downed and rid of its intoxicating liquor. The letter had been pieced together by a mind in tatters.

But Victoria was not to know that.

Following his advice, obediently dismissing her own longings, the Queen requested consistent help from Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert Peel was not a bad man, but he was a boring one. A couple of years ago, that would have been much worse to the young Queen, and she would have preferred a very, very bad gentleman to one who bores her. But Sir Robert's sheer dullness brought the Queen immense comfort. Of course, she would have preferred the amiable company of her dear Lord M but, if she could not, his company was preferable to the cooing and swooning of every other companion she had. He did not treat her like a chest carrying treasure, for a start. He treated her like a woman. Like he would treat any other woman: with dull stories, embarrassing clichés, and political droning. It consoled her. It made her feel like a Queen again, rather than a vessel for an heir.

Sir Robert, too, found the Queen's company to be a great comfort. He finally felt like she was placing trust in him. After a very long time. And, in truth, she was. She felt that Sir Robert was more of a Prime Minister to her than the Prime Minister himself, who lay dormant at Brocket Hall, as far off as the stars.

It was not until August that Lord Melbourne wrote to the Queen again. And, when the letter arrived, she wished that she had never heard from him for as long as she lived.

 _Your Majesty,_

 _I am afraid this letter may distress you, your Majesty, and for that I first and foremost do apologise. However, I hope you will understand that this is necessary. You must know how this news brings me pain. As much as it will you. Perhaps, though it is daring for me to assume this, more so._

 _I am resigning as your Prime Minister._

 _I am sure this news is not a shock to you: what with two votes of no confidence and the loss of 70 Whig seats in the last election. In June, our grip was faltering but, with only a single vote expressing the distrust in my government, I had hope I may continue as your Prime Minister yet. However, with recent developments, my government does not have the support of Parliament required to continue governing this fine country. You understand how I value the British constitution. Now, more than ever, as it is your constitution, your Majesty, and I wish for it to be in the healthiest possible state for your reign. This is the only way I can protect this constitution, as I hope you agree. The decision has been a difficult one but I can hold on no longer. I am too old for politics, your Majesty. I have served long enough, and with little radical thought and little to say for my name (save your Majesty, who I hope beyond measure will be my legacy). The country needs a fresh face. The country needs Sir Robert Peel._

 _I understand your objection to Sir Robert, and I know you will not take kindly to my propositions of his role. But, I implore you to consider what is best for the country. I know how much you care for the country. I also know how you have served it beautifully. I trust you will make the right decision, now, allowing me to step down, and allowing Sir Robert Peel to form a Tory government. Sir Robert is a kind man. I have known him for a long time and, although we have been political enemies, I respect him more than anyone else in Parliament. He will serve you excellently, your Majesty, if you will allow him to. I beg of you, give him a worthy chance, as you would do me. He will probably ask for you to make changes to your bedchamber, as he did three years ago. You must obey him. Understand that, simply because you are dismissing ladies, does not mean they are lost to you forever. Be obliging, although it is hard, and Sir Robert's proficiency will reward you. He will make a great Prime Minister, I promise you, and a worthy and reliable friend._

 _We have both understood for a long time that I would not be your Prime Minister forever: this is a natural conclusion._

 _I do not need to tell you what an honour it has been, your Majesty. You understand that. I am endlessly thankful for the time I have acted as your Prime Minister, your guidance and, most importantly, your friend. I hope we can call each other that, now. I do not hesitate in calling you my friend. I hope you can do the same. I will recollect my service to you as the happiest and most prosperous years of this long life. I cannot confess to having the most joyful life but, I feel, thanks to these past few years, I can look back at it with fondness. I can only hope that you, too, think back on me with fondness. I have done my very best in your service. I only wished to serve you. It is still all I wish._

 _I await the news of your new child, a warm addition to what I am sure is a happy family. Please, your Majesty, allow yourself that happiness. Do not dwell on what might have been. Your husband loves you. I said once that you needed a husband: to cherish you, honour you. Prince Albert can give you that. I wish you all the happiness this world can offer you._

 _I hope to continue a correspondence with you, if your Majesty feels it is apt. Of course, I understand your family comes first. I am aware that a correspondence may be improper. I am at your disposal. Do with me how you feel appropriate._

 _I cannot help but remember the letter you sent me, after your marriage. I remember you told me that we will meet again, in a place without boundaries. I hope to find it. Soon, I fear. There I will wait for you. Do not rush. I am patient._

 _Your servant, always,_

 _William Lamb._

Victoria cried over the letter, which she allowed the flames to devour, until she could cry no more and she was sure her heart would shatter. Albert heard. He did not react. He stared at the wall that he knew separated them. He did not go to her.

Victoria was not seen in public for a month. She was hardly seen in the palace for a month. Even Lehzen, who was always so close to the Queen, was forbidden from meeting with her. Her mother was not allowed to see her. Sir Robert Peel was called for, but his powers of persuasion were too weak to tempt her from her room. A message was sent to Lord Melbourne, but he did not come, for he was no longer the Prime Minister, and knew he had to cut the ties he had with the palace. Albert had tried, but had not succeeded. There were rumours beginning to flame that the Queen had died in childbirth in her bedroom.

It was the beginning of October when Victoria began to play the piano again. Her songs were very sad. The Queen had always liked happy tunes: the sort of melodies one can dance to at a good pace. She played melodies that swung on the air, tipping out of every window and spilling over the land and making all who heard it happy. She played songs that danced on the staircases and chimed on the chandeliers, making the people in the portraits smile and the servants tap their toes. Not a single tune like that was played in the darkened October days. All the songs were solemn and played to the beat of the rain hitting windows that were once open and light. And she played them for hours, Albert sitting with a book on the other side of the room, glancing over at her every time the melody faded to a finish and hoping she would close the piano, sweep from the stool, and lay herself beside him, in his arms. But, every time, she took a breath, turned the page, and began again.

It was tiresome, but tireless.

Finally, after hearing her begin another yearning piano melody, Albert said,

"How can I make you happy?"

The music stopped. And Victoria turned to her husband, confused as to why he interrupted her. She was silent and, for a moment, Albert was afraid that she had not heard him. He was about to repeat himself, or pretend he had said something else, or pretend he had sneezed, or change the subject entirely, or pretend he had said nothing and that she was imagining things. But, then, she spoke, sure of herself, as if nothing at all was wrong with her,

"You do make me happy, Albert. You are my husband, and you have been nothing but kind to me."

The reply spurred an anger in Albert that had long lay latent. How could she pretend that everything was fine? How could she, for one second, pretend that they were not both miserable? Swallowing his pride, he said,

"But you do not love me."

She laughed and opened her mouth to protest, but she did not. Her mouth hung open, slack. Albert's gaze was boring into her with force she had not felt from him before. So intense. So angry. She felt her heart flutter: fear? Excitement? Freedom?

"You are in love with Lord Melbourne."

The words sounded ugly. A lump rose in Victoria's throat.

"How can you say that?" she cried.

"It is true."

"Albert, you are my husband. I said my vows. I gave my life to you."

"Deny it."

"Albert-"

"Deny it." Albert's voice was too severe for Victoria, the monarch, and his sovereign, to argue with him again. She feared what he would do, though she knew he could do nothing to her.

"Yes."

"What?"

 _"_ _Yes."_

"You are?"

"Yes, I am in love with Lord Melbourne."

Albert bit his cheek so hard he tasted metal.

"I try so hard, Victoria, _I really do_."

"I cannot help it, Albert. Trust me, I have tried!"

"What have I done wrong?"

 _"_ _Albert!"_

"What have I done wrong?"

Victoria slammed the keys of the piano, crying out,

"I just want you to smile at me, Albert!" _Like he does._

Dash began to bark at the noises and Victoria rose from the piano violently and fled. Albert threw his book across the room which slammed against the wall with a large thud – which thundered in Victoria's ears - and he left the palace, for the gardens, and was not seen again until early the next morning, when the Queen was still asleep, by the servants. He was rushed quickly to bed. Not in their bedchamber, however, but on the other side of the palace. As to keep the Queen safe.

Victoria awoke feeling guilty. That horrid throbbing of guilt, clawing at her mind and tugging at the chambers of her heart. Making her want to say things that she promised she would never say. Making her want to give in. It was the most terrible thing to feel. Guilt. Victoria thought it was a worthless sort of feeling and, yet, she could not prevent herself from feeling it. And feeling it very strongly.

She did not dress before she made her way down to the sitting room. She wanted to talk to Albert soon, before her guilt became too sickening. Before she built herself up into a frenzy of guilt that would lead to her being overly apologetic and saying some silly things she would later regret. She waddled down the stairs, and noticed the stillness. There were no servants loitering – as they sometimes did. There was the smell of something distinctive. She recognised the stench, and the effect it had on the air, and the loneliness and quietness it caused; but she did not know what the smell was, or why it was in the air on this morning. Lehzen, who was normally so attentive, was not present. Victoria felt a creeping sense of unease come about her.

When entered the chill of the sitting room, Albert was not to be seen. Emma Portman was sat in the room, sewing, and she stood when she heard the door swing open. She was a little taken aback to see her in the nightclothes but had been informed of the events of the night before and, so, was not too shocked. Did the Queen already know? Emma could not be certain, so pursed her lips shut.

The Queen asked,

"Where is Albert?"

Emma Portman's heart throbbed.

"Prince Albert has fallen ill with a fever, Ma'am."

"Oh," Victoria said, casting her eyes down, "Well. I am sure he will be fine."

"Of course, Ma'am." She smiled. "He is getting stronger by the minute."


	5. Death

It was early in October when the Queen – heavily pregnant and utterly alone, as if far, far out at sea – realised that Albert was not getting stronger by the minute.

When waking in the middle of the night after a bad dream or a gust of wind rattling the window or a shuffling of the servants attending the sickened Prince, she always expected his foot to be nuzzling at the hem of her nightgown, kicking gently at her ankle, or to be able to feel his breath on her nose and her neck. She sometimes expected to feel his hand in hers, or hers wrapped tightly in his. The sheets atop her would sometimes emulate a clasping hand, and she would smile to think he was there next to her again, but her eyes would open and the illusion would shatter. He was never there but, instead, bound in the room that smelled of death ever since Lady Flora had passed her final moments there. She had locked it up after Lady Flora's funeral: wishing not to look at it or enter it. But, the stillness of the room and the rooms surrounding it made it the perfect place for the fevered Prince. It made Victoria feel very sick to think of the death that had already plagued those walls. She wished to move him to another room, a lighter room, with airy windows and thin, muslin curtains and pictures on the pale walls of trees and long-stretching forests that would make Albert smile. There were no paintings like that in the Palace: only portraits of stuffy old people draped in antiquities and locked inside doors and doors and doors in the dark and the warmth of a burning fire. Albert would hate to look at them, Victoria knew that. A brighter room may lift his spirits, she thought. But the doctors told her, very forcefully, that the Prince hadn't the strength to be moved and that it was far better to keep him where he was and allow him to rest and regain his health, although the room he now dwelt in was dusky and gloomy. She knew it was not good for him, no matter what the doctors said, but she hadn't the strength to argue with them.

Victoria would have visited him, but she knew she would come away with a terrible headache and thoughts more painful. It was not good for the child. The child was wriggling inside her, all the time. She wanted it out.

It had been so long since she had seen Lord Melbourne, and it was hurting more by the second.

Lord Melbourne was struggling with emotions that were lying dangerously close to the surface, and his skin – becoming very thin, almost translucent – would not be able to hide them any longer, he feared. He had found himself prone to bouts of heavy drinking. He could never have credited himself for his sobriety, not in all his years, but he had never drunk quite so recklessly as he began to in those lonely months at Brocket Hall. He downed a glass instead of eating breakfast. The sun and its honey glow had hardly stretched above the throng of trees nestling on the horizon, not nearly breached the top of the bridge spanning the River Lea in the grounds of the Hall, before he was a little numb, fuzzied, and drunk. It was an activity he would continue throughout the day, and those days would form into routine, and routine into tradition; and, in between gazes at the bottoms of empty glasses of port, he would read an article about the Queen in the newspaper and he would find the courage not to weep in another swig of port.

He had not been so sad in a very long time. Sadness is the pursuit of the young, he always told himself. As a young man, he had often found himself wallowing in sorrows over bottles of alcohol, all alone. He was a reckless man once. He would drink and then gamble away a good deal of money that he couldn't afford to gamble away, on a whim. He would say things that his mind had not sense enough to consider, and do things that a sober man would not think of doing. He liked to believe that he had outgrown that but, in truth, he was still the same man. Perhaps not quite so extreme, perhaps not quite so strong, but still all the same. He would drink and gamble and whore and cling on to his vices with a vice-like grip when the gloom came over him. And Victoria's absence was the darkest gloom which brought out the darkest vices. He was drinking to excess, falling asleep at his desk with the empty bottle beside him when he awoke, burning in the sunlight and near-deafened by the birdsong. He knew that if he had access to a cards table, he would do something very foolish. He knew that if he had access to Ma Fletcher's Nunnery, he would do something more foolish.

Caro had brought out the same vices, initially. He had fallen for Caro for the same reason he loved Victoria so ardently. His mother was a difficult woman and, he smiled a little in humour on the thinking of it, so were they. When courting Caro, he found himself victim to such agonising depressions that he was sure he would die of the grief. She was so quick-witted and headstrong and witty: all the things he found so attractive about her made her an inconvenient mistress to pursue. He found her first as a very young man at a ball. It was a ball that he did not want to go to, as he was in the pursuit of forming himself into a political mind that would make his mother proud. But he had been convinced that a ball would do him good and, being a socially-minded man with charm and a knack for flirtation, he conceded. He remembered vividly seeing her there. Clouded in the candlelight, gossamer billowing at her sleeve and at the ground, cinched below her bust. A sharp face with a little chin and a thin nose, unusual and by all reports not especially enrapturing. Too snippy, said some. Too small, said others. But, to the young William Lamb, she was exquisite. Fiendishly intelligent. Outspoken. She was intense company and he was immediately on his knees for her. Courting her was almost as agonising as keeping an amiable conversation with her.

Victoria, like Caro, was tactless and talkative and turbulent, but also intelligent beyond belief and humorous and lively and beautiful. It made her just as painful as Caro had been. Victoria was his last love, he understood that. But, he thought, mulling over her on that hazy drunken afternoon, thinking of Caro too, that Victoria was the greatest love of his life.

He had never expected to live so sadly again. With age came tranquillity, he had told himself, and with age came acceptance, and a happy medium. Youth is full of the most euphoric highs plummeting into the deepest and darkest of lows. A man of his years had no reason to expect such lows.

He had never felt lows like these. Not quite so bitter. Not quite so hollow.

A light had been extinguished. His only light. Snatched away, leaving him cold. He had experienced love, he knew it very well. He had experienced a love that he had resigned never to experience again. After Caro, after a marriage – unhappy though it was – he had convinced himself that those glances across a room, that throbbing of his heart, the coiling in his chest, the trembling of his breath, clenching of jaw and dryness of throat were all lost to him. But it found him again, against his will, against his better judgement, against all expectations, against all odds. It had sought him out in the night, creeping into his mind, seeping into his heart. He had never felt less safe: but danger had never felt so beautiful.

But the safety had returned, the beauty taken from him and a loveless end to his years became his reality. Day in day out. Although he knew that it was necessary, and it was always to be this way for him, he did not feel guilty about drinking his way through it. An anaesthetic. Some way to null the pain.

But, of course, the pain came hand in hand with the sacrifice and the sacrifice was made for the love he bore her. If it was truly love he felt – not simple, carnal desire stemming from the loins – he would do just as he had done. To set her free. Let her take wing. Marry Albert. An appropriate match, though the Queen may not have originally understood it. A sacrifice worth making. He knew, deep down, that she would grow to love Albert, and forget him. It was the way fate would spin its tale. And then he could perhaps find some contentment in knowing that, through his agony, he had done the highest deed of love to her. Not the most pleasurable, by a long shot, but the right one.

The last years of his life may be spent peacefully as he had expected old age to treat him: thinking of her, but knowing she is happy. That is what he told himself. In reality, it was far, far more difficult. Brocket Hall was a refuge for him once but, now, it only made him think of her. When she had visited him in these walls. What had passed between them and, more agonisingly, what hadn't and what couldn't. He could not escape her. Her voice. Her silvery laugh. The lightening of his heart when she was there. The pride he felt. The meaning behind her eyes. The torrent of passion that she so carefully hid. The trembling of her bosom. The way her hand danced delicately against his during a waltz. The tilt of her head when she looked up at him. The desire he felt towards her. His attraction. He had known attraction, but none quite so consuming. The call of 'Lord M'. The topics of which they spoke. Her intellect. Her name. Her. _Always her._

He was wallowing over yet another glass of burning alcohol – which sort, he was unsure for he was so intoxicated that they all began to look and taste the same – when the newspaper caught his immediate attention.

The Prince was ill.

His mind began to fire. He knew it shouldn't.

Illnesses were not uncommon, he told himself. Illnesses were perfectly commonplace. But, surely, for it to be reported in the newspaper, it must be something more than a bad throat and a cough.

Of course, Melbourne had never wished any harm to come to the Prince. He was not the vengeful sort. Jealous, yes, a vice he sought to eradicate from himself long ago as a young man but hadn't the strength to do so and - in age - he came to realise that all men have their vices. He was no different. But he could not count malice as one of them; and, for that, he was thankful. So, although he found himself pining over the couple's happiness, longing over her, he did not wish any ill on her husband. However, although he would never confess such a thing to another living soul, there was something warm and distant in his mind which, with a shudder, he recognised as hope. Hopeful for what? For the wish of taking advantage of a grieving widow? Now, finally able to have what he has always wanted more than anything else? His own humanity frightened him. Besides, no, this would not guarantee him a chance of romance with the monarch: it would be no more likely than it was before Albert arrived. Unless, perhaps, the child she bore was a male heir. She would have fulfilled her duty, and then be living as a poor widow, alone in the world, husbandless. He knew, of course, that Victoria was perfectly capable without the guidance of a husband but it was something many men did not understand and, so, a remarriage would perhaps be advisable. Then, perhaps, the public would show sympathy. Then, perhaps, Parliament would overlook it. He was not the Prime Minister anymore. He would have no need to influence her politically either way and would simply wish to love her as a man loves a woman and nothing else. Then, perhaps, she would allow it - as father to her child and a lover to her most gracious person. Melbourne knew that Victoria was not in love with Albert and so surely it would not be difficult for her to recover and move on. A small respite of grieving, naturally, and then only happiness. And then they would be bound together for the rest of their lives in the bond they had always desired. He quickly silenced his imagination. He was being a fool. His sense knew it and deplored him for it. Such thoughts regarding a widow were unsavoury. His face coloured a little, and sweat collected on the back of his neck, and he felt very ashamed of himself.

He stunted his humanity to preserve the intelligent man.

He considered visiting the Queen, but knew he could not. Perhaps he would only make it worse. Of course he would only make it worse.

Surely, the Prince would recover. And then Victoria and Albert would grow old, in love, as he had planned.

"Surely the Prince will recover soon?" Victoria said, sewing furiously on to a piece of fabric which she lay across her bloated belly for support. She pricked her finger, cried out, and brought it to her mouth quickly, sucking the tasteless blood from her wound.

Emma Portman and Harriet Sutherland, who were also sewing, cast a hesitant view in each other's direction. They, unlike the Queen, had been to see the Prince. They had not entered the room for fear of disturbing him but they had peered through the doorway. Emma Portman recounted the experience to her husband, Edward Portman, later that day, and had described it as 'peering in on a marionette without the puppeteer'. Harriet Sutherland would have disputed this as, when recounting the experience to her husband – George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower – she talked of how he tossed and turned as if he were a small rowing boat on a tempestuous tide. His salt-water sweat made this analogy more potent. However, both ladies told their husbands of the terrible moans.

"May God forgive this treason, but those were the sounds of a man fearing his creator."

"I have never heard anything quite like it. So pained. I fear he is very sick."

Both women could still hear the moans but, knowing it was unwise to distress the pregnant Queen, they both smiled before Harriet said,

"Of course, Ma'am. The Prince is a strong young man."

They did not convince Victoria, but she chose to be comforted by them. Taking her finger from her lips, she inspected the wound and went back to her sewing. She could not concentrate on the sewing, however, because she could constantly feel the kicking feet of her unborn child, kicking against her skin, against her organs, wriggling to get free. She hoped Albert would be better by the time of the birth. She could feel it coming, a pushing in her abdomen, a draining of her spirit, and she knew it would not be long now. She felt, no matter how she thought of her husband, she would not be able to deliver the child without him by her side. Holding her hand. Wiping her brow. Willing her on. Looking down in utter delight at his child, so that she wouldn't have to. The same doctors who tended to the Prince informed the Queen that the child would soon be on its way. She wondered whether it would be a boy. She hoped very much that he would. An heir would serve the country better than a little girl. Albert would like a little boy.

But Albert's sickness made him distracted. And a distracted mind could not appreciate thoughts of a child. His mind could not appreciate anything.

One evening, on the 29th October, just when the orange of the sunset had retreated into the deep purple twilight and the clouds had blotted out the sun and the stars until the sky was a stretch of grey-purple murk, Victoria was called from the sitting room at the greatest urgency by Penge, who was white as a sheet, trembling despite his training and the effort to appear calm. He had rushed from the Prince's room, and was heaving from the exercise. A manservant never runs. Unless in emergencies. Victoria looked up from the hairstyles that Harriet Sutherland was showing her, saw the man's face, and felt suddenly very, very sick. It shot straight to her stomach. A dizzying thunderbolt. She sprung to her feet without thinking and almost collapsed in her haste. A great, terrible pain shifted into her abdomen. Her ears were fuzzy and her head airy and aching. She did not need to be told, she simply ran to her husband, Harriet Sutherland remaining behind, beginning to weep. Emma Portman, brave as ever in the face of the inevitable, went to Harriet and bound her in her arms, listening silently to the sound of the Queen's urgent footsteps echoing through the palace. Emma's body felt heavy. She feared for the Queen. She feared for the country.

The room smelt as it had done when Lady Flora Hastings had lain there. Victoria's blood ran cold when she caught a whiff of it. It brought her right back, to when she sought Lady Flora's forgiveness, only days before the woman's death. That same rotting smell which stung in the nostrils and made the eyes water. An unnatural smell. Not a smell for the living. The door heralded her entrance with a dull groan that screeched into her head. _Or was that Albert?_ She could not be sure for, as soon as she saw him, his groans ate at her. Fevered. He was squirming in his blankets, kicking them away from him then tugging them closer, like the soul of one already in hell, yearning for their respite. He glowed, like an angel. But it was sweat that made him glow so. No light spilled through the thick curtains over the window. The moon had tipped from a cloud. Albert could not see it. She had never heard a noise quite like it. It struck her to the very core, calling out to something visceral and base within her, the primal instinct to stay alive, and the quickness of death's clasp. She knew, then, that he was dying.

She was told, by a doctor, that he did not have long left. Hollow, she moved like a ghost around the room to his bedside, where she hovered, looking over the tortured form of her husband, white and shining and crippled in agony. His mouth was open in a cry to God, but not a noise was heard.

She did not feel that she had the right to touch him, as she knew a wife should do. What had she done to deserve the touch of a husband she had killed?

"Albert." Her voice trembled. His eyes, nearly rolling back into his head, fixed on her. They were not her husband's eyes but the eyes of a madman. Steely blue. Ice. Set deep into a skull that ached to be seen, finally. Staring straight through her. Looking for light. Looking for God. No love. Pain. A gasp was forced, strained, from her lungs, to see her husband so transformed. What a thing it was, to be so close to your creator, and find no peace in it. One is taught of death, and one is taught of slumber and heaven. This was not those things. This was torture. "Oh, Albert!" Victoria cried, drawing her hands to her mouth, clasping her palms over her cries, muffling the sobs that racked her, nearly cracking her ribcage, and fracturing her heart. She was so afraid. The doctors watched from the corners of the room, silent and solemn. They had seen this scene unfold countless times before.

Albert could not speak. His mind spoke sonnets but his words hadn't fire enough to ignite them. But, if he could have formed words, he would have told her he loved her. No matter what. He loved her. He would have told her to take care of their child. He would have told her to be strong, to move on, to find happiness where she could, to be happy and smile a lot, to have balls and parties and go on long, fast horse rides. He would have told her to be in the trees and think of him. He would have told her to watch the stars. He would have told her a million things if he had strength to say them. And time enough which, he knew, he did not.

A shaking hand, soft and hesitant, lay across his breast, and Victoria cried,

"I am so sorry. You have been nothing but kind to me. I never realised it before. I was too cruel. Oh, I have been so cruel to you, Albert. I have been so cruel. Forgive me."

A flicker of something passed through his pain-stricken gaze. A moment's recollection, recognition. A fleeting warmth which told Victoria that she was forgiven. Told her that he loved her still. For a moment, a little moment which was whisked away so quickly that she could almost believe it had never occurred, she had seen her Albert again. Her cousin. Her husband. Her lover. The boy who would drive her mad. The man who made her heart skip when they played the piano together and their hands brushed. The man who took her riding on the sleigh, and sang with her into the snow. The man who fathered her child. The man who she thought she would grow old with. The man who she was so tired of and, yet, so safe with. She wished she could have heard him say something. Just a little something to put her frenzied mind at rest. But, with her hand resting on the heart that still strained enough in the effort of beating, she felt its warmth. A little life left in it still.

Then she felt a kick in her belly. And choked a sob. The hand on his heart curled into a grip on his shirt. Knuckles white. Her heart hammered out her speech. She collapsed into his bedside. Sobbing. Shaking her head. The child kicked harder.

"Don't leave me, Albert. I cannot do this without you. Please. Albert. I will be so alone. Our child will be so alone. Our children. I will not be able to bear it, Albert. Please. Stay with me. Albert? Albert? Albert!"

Her wails echoed in a hollow palace. A chill crept into every corner. The air was still. The Prince was cold.

Emma wrote to Lord Melbourne. She thought long and hard about whether she should prompt him to come to London or advise him to stay at Brocket Hall. She could not anticipate which would be preferable to the Queen, and feared an adverse reaction. She had not seen the Queen since she had been informed of the terrible news. Harriet had come over in a fit of sobs, and Emma had spent hours with her, pursuing the young woman's comfort. The Queen, she heard, had not left the Prince's side. She did not expect the Queen to move for some time. Emma could hear her screams. They shot into the silence. She decided to leave it to Lord Melbourne's inclination. His better judgement. She expressed no opinions. She simply told him the news. She hoped it did not grieve him too much.

 _William,_

 _The Prince was taken in the night by a fever. The young Queen is a widow. The child will come soon. She is very vulnerable. I fear for her._

 _Yours,_

 _Emma Portman._

The news brought him sorrow. Grief, perhaps. But not on the account of the Prince but because the poor widow. Too young to be a widow. Far too young, and far too much life in her. He thought of how she must be feeling, what she must be doing now, and his heart broke with the weight of it. He was sure he could feel her heart, calling out, not to him but to another, and – yet – his heart was aware of the cry and was answering it. The cry his heart gave was too painful to bear. He wanted nothing more than to see her, to bind her in his arms and kiss away the sorrows, but he, too, wondered whether it would be wiser to visit her and offer his comfort or stay away and let her be. The thoughts wound around his throat until he struggled to breathe. He slumped over his desk, head buried in two old hands, headache acute and heartache more potent. That calling became louder. Beating stronger in his chest. Filling the empty space in him.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you._

For the first time in a very long time, he conceded to his inclination, and told his butler that he would be going to London. The decision was decisive. The carriage was prepared. Lord Melbourne was unshaven, greyer than usual, and riddled with a tiredness that made his face gaunt and his eyes dark and sunken. When asked how long he would stay, he replied,

"However long she needs me."

The solemn bell tolled out over London town early in the morning. It sent shockwaves through the streets. A collective sigh clouded over the roofs and formed a fog which blocked out the sun. Victoria could hear the chatter from the people and from the Parliament, in the house, all about her. She wanted to shut it out. She tried to blot out the noise with her own cries. It chattered on.

"Who will keep her grounded? We know how flighty she can be!"

"The Queen must have a husband. She must be remarried."

"She cannot remarry! It is out of the question! She is the Queen, not some common woman!"

"The country needs a young man to the right of the throne!"

"But a husband?"

"A husband, a companion, anyone!"

"The country may be sympathetic to the young widow. Another marriage is not out of the question."

"Not so soon!"

"The Queen must be seen to mourn."

"Not excessively. There are more important things to do."

"What if she does not produce a male heir?"

"She must find another father. She must have a male heir."

"The country must."

"What if she is too weak to deliver the child? She must be grieving fiercely."

"She may go the same way as poor Charlotte."

"She is strong enough. I can only hope that the child is strong, too."

"A husband and a child passing away. Could she cope with that?"

"She might go mad."

"We've had a mad king already."

"Sir Robert will keep her in check."

"Sir Robert can hardly keep Lady Peel in check!"

"Where is Lord Melbourne?"

"Out of the picture. Retired to Brocket Hall. His infirmities are getting the better of him."

"There must be someone."

"We must find someone."

"The poor woman."

"A widowed Queen. _What next?_ "


	6. Life

No one knew whether the Queen would attend the funeral of Prince Albert. There was no way of anyone knowing, as no one had seen her, and all they had heard of her for the past week was the screams. The screams that almost teared Buckingham Palace apart. The screams that aimed for heaven (or bellowed to hell) in the pursuit of summoning her lost husband, and drawing him back into the world of the living where she now continued on in desolation and fear. She could feel her unborn child scraping at the walls of the womb, trying to break free, to escape its mother's cries, to be born into a fatherless world with a mother who hated it. She felt no strength in her bones and her muscles. She could hardly bring herself to stand, let alone produce a child.

If she were to die, she thought, she would be following her husband.

She assented to attended the funeral the night before, in a hollow tone, no emotion visible in her translucent skin, as if her screams had thrown the soul of her away, cascading into the air and out of her.

Lord Melbourne arrived in London for the funeral, held on a dark day in early November. He felt that the funeral was his duty to attend, though he could not shake the feeling that his attendance was sin. God clasped him. He could feel the jurors' eyes on him as he entered the Chapel and took his place among the crowd. He was not the Prime Minister anymore, but his arrival caused more of a stir than it had done when he held the title. He had announced his retirement to Brocket Hall. What was he doing back in London? Their gossip like flames licked his ears and scolded him.

There was a general cloud, a courteous sense of mourning, that all had adopted but, among it, sticking out sorely and distastefully, but adopted again by all, was an excitement, a breath bated, a desire for something exciting to come of this. Something to gossip about. Something to tell a story about.

Lord Melbourne, who was stood within earshot of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel – scheming as always, he thought – and with no other company to divert his attentions, listened to their conversation, his interest piqued when they turned to the subject of the Queen.

"The Queen is heavily pregnant. It won't be long now," the Duke said, taking a pinch of snuff, perhaps to calm the nerves that brimmed when he had to think about the Queen's situation. Strange for a man of war to be brought into snuff-taking by the affairs of royalty: but, Melbourne thought, he was not a man of war anymore, but a politician, and it is not unusual at all for a politician to be brought into hysterics by these circumstances. He almost was.

"Will she be in good enough health to deliver the child?" Sir Robert asked.

"We must damn well hope so."

Melbourne thought it highly improper for the two gentlemen to be having such a conversation at the funeral of the late Prince. He almost deplored them before realising that, in fact, he was glad of it. The doom and gloom of a funeral was enough to send him mad. A distraction was welcome.

Just then, the doors of the Chapel gave an almighty crack, as if the will of God was descending like a whip on the world, and the crack turned into a creak which split the air and send shudders down everyone's spines. An indefinite chill caught the air and held it static. There were no bells, no noise at all, but the vibrations of a great tolling rippled the ground, and was scattered by the slow footsteps which began to proceed through the Chapel, bearing the great ton weight of the coffin, and all the potential it held of a kind monarch and a good man. Snuffed out too fast. And now lying encased in black, along with everyone else, and the Queen, who shuffled through, veiled in inky black lace, her bulbous tummy swallowed in folds and folds of silk taffeta, so shadowy that it made the small Queen's body into a void, where no colour or light was permitted to permeate. Her mother, the Duchess, followed behind, her blonde ringlets looking limp and grey. King Leopold followed too, bravely. He, too, had turned grey.

Where a light, sweet and pale, may once have gleaned in the blue eyes of the Queen, there was now the absence of it. Not darkness: but some terrible midpoint, an awful grey, like a gauze had been drawn over the light and had mottled it out. Rid her of it. She walked like a ghost: only half a woman, the other half lost somewhere in the wind. No one had ever seen her so pale, such a dark purple shadow around her eyes, so bloodshot, freshly cried, mouth slack, following in the wake of her husband. Dead because of her, she repeated to herself. Dead because of Lord Melbourne. Dead because of her.

She still made Lord Melbourne breathless.

The casket was brought to the front of the Chapel, and the funeral proceeded like a dream, not quite there, passing quickly and without gravity. Women were crying, dabbing at their eyes with black-edged handkerchiefs and muffling their sobs within the satin folds. Men cast solemn gazes at the stony floor. The Queen was brave – braver than anyone knew possible. Having heard the stories of her screams, it was hard to believe that she would be so stoical. She stood like an immovable object, frail, yet firm, so delicate yet harbouring the great swell of an unborn child. Albert was laid to rest but Victoria found to rest in it.

Dead because of her.

The crowds left the Chapel, giving the Queen and the close family a moment alone with the casket. They gathered in a throng outside the doors, beginning to flame with talk of the Queen and the late Prince and the choice of mourning gown and the poor, poor woman and the poor, poor man and the poor, poor child and whether or not the Queen was strong enough to produce an heir, and whether or not a Regent had been appointed.

"The world of politics has somewhat lost its scandal now that you're gone, Melbourne." Melbourne, who was feeling a horrible rise of sobs rising in his lungs and throat which he tried to suppress, turned to see Sir Robert Peel, clearly saddened, but still well enough to bait the ex-Prime Minister and long-term political rival who had unexpectedly returned to London.

"For the best, I suppose," Melbourne replied in his usual amiable tone, though his teeth were threatening to grate. He wondered whether his sobs were evident in the croaks of his voice or the blinking of his eyes, the trembling of his hands. Careful to appear impartial, but needing the information he sought, he asked, "How is she?"

"She has been well, until very recently, of course."

Sir Robert wished to tell Lord Melbourne of the unhappiness that the Queen lived in whilst married to the late Prince Consort, but knew that it was not the time nor the place to speak ill of the marriage or the Prince. And how would Melbourne react? Sir Robert had his suspicions as to why the Queen was so discontented in a marriage which, to any other woman, would have been nothing but joyous. Of course, it was the wiles of Lord Melbourne. Sir Robert did not like the man, but could appreciate his appeal to the fairer sex. To deny that would be foolish. He was a charming man, attractive, virile at an age when men oughtn't to be. Lady Peel had spoken often enough of it – much to Sir Robert's exasperation. Victoria had been claimed, utterly, by him, and had never found the strength to forget.

To tell Lord Melbourne of the Queen's infatuation with him would be unwise, particularly now. What would Lord Melbourne do about it? He not only had suspicions of the Queen's infatuation with him, but also of his with her.

And, besides, Sir Robert was quite sure that – with the grief of widowhood – her obsession with William Lamb would die.

Then, as if suddenly seized by the gravity of the situation surrounding him and the monarch, Sir Robert Peel's face gained a few shadows and, pensively, he continued,

"These are dark times, Melbourne. Parliament has been brought to a standstill. We cannot get royal assent. She has abandoned all matters of state. She's refusing to see me, refusing to see anyone! We're on the brink of a constitutional crisis," he garbled, leaning in closer to Lord Melbourne, keeping his voice low, aware of the eyes and ears surrounding them.

"The Queen is mourning, Peel," Melbourne replied, not casting his gaze down to the man, remaining upright and utterly confident in his voice. Peel's words angered him, buzzed in his ears. How dare he insinuate that the Queen should feel guilty for a period of mourning? She was entitled to mourn. In fact, it would be more dangerous to the constitution for her not to mourn. Feelings, in Melbourne's experience, could never remain bottled. They would have to burst out sometime and when they did it would be more violent than ever. No. Peel was being insensitive. He would not pander to him.

"Of course, she is. I can understand that. But when will the period of mourning end? She's taken it very badly."

"The Queen is a sensitive woman, but she will recover," Melbourne replied, becoming impatient. Speculations just seemed tactless.

"Not just a woman, Melbourne. The Queen. She has a duty to uphold. You have suffered bereavement, but you still understood your duty to the country."

"When I was widowed, I was forty-nine years of age!" Melbourne spat, his anger getting the better of him. He did not know what incensed him more: Sir Robert having the gall to mention his own private grief, or his disrespect for the Queen. "The Queen is but twenty-two. It is far too young to be a widow." Melbourne's voice cracked. He swallowed and felt the salt slide down the back of his throat. He shuddered. Blinked away his tears. "She is well within her right to grieve. If you are so concerned, Sir Robert, let me put your mind at rest by assuring you that the Queen is a responsible and intelligent monarch and, if I can credit myself for having taught her anything, I believe she understands her duty. Give her time, she will return to her duties soon enough."

Sir Robert sighed.

"Perhaps. Or, perhaps, you just cannot hear her screams from your library at Brocket Hall."

Peel's words sliced into Melbourne's veins, setting them bleeding, letting the cold in.

The doors opened once again, and the Queen exited the Chapel, having made her last goodbye to Albert, meek and small as any other woman of her small frame, meeker and smaller now than ever. Like a doll. Hollow like a doll, too. The dirt of a wet ground collected at the bottom of her skirt. The groups formed outside the Chapel fell silent, and turned to look at her. She did not catch the eye of a single member of the crowd formed between the door and her carriage, until she looked up very briefly, and her eyes flew to the green-gold gaze that she recognised in an instant. Her arms and legs went numb. Her body pulsed. Her heart called out.

Lord Melbourne's mouth opened when the Queen's gaze settled on him, and he thought about saying something before remembering that any speech he gave to her would be overheard by a hundred others. He gawped, and she stopped, and looked. His mouth moved without sound and she recognised it as 'Victoria'. What was he doing here? It had been so long. She could hardly remember. Her heart screamed 'William' before her mind repeated: dead because of Lord Melbourne, dead because of her. The moment could not have lasted more than a second but, to them, it felt more like a lifetime. Her eyes sought his with confusion, and his with forgiveness, and pity, and love. It struck in the very core of her which was cold and aching. She remembered the echo she had written to him: I love you, I love you, I love you. She remembered promising to meet him in heaven. It throttled her. Then, as if a clumsy hand had taken the doll and shook it, a shudder passed through her frame which forced a gasp from her awaiting mouth and lifted her chin to the sky, eyes rolling back. Her mother caught her limp body for it seemed she would faint. Unsteady and half-asleep, she was led onward to the carriage, fresh tears being fought back all the way. Lord Melbourne turned crimson in shame.

He could hear the rumours skipping from mouth to mouth. He could feel the scorn clamouring like an unshakable pressure on every part of him, strangling him of breath, beating against his skull.

Lord Melbourne did not take his carriage back to his London residence. He walked, needing the air to smother the fire that was catching in his blood. It did not smother the fire, but fanned the flames. Emma, following him, could hear his breath coming thick and fast through his mouth and she could see his fists clenching. She called out for him but he did not turn around. He crossed into the house, the door held open by the butler, and Emma dipped in before the butler could close the door. He would have stopped her, but Lady Emma was not one for stopping.

When Emma caught up with him in his library, he was frenzied, pacing back and forth, gesticulating wildly, eyes roving like a madman, hands trembling. He did not react to her entrance. Emma was afraid that he was going to break something: seize a paperweight from the table and throw it against the wall, scatter it into a million glass fragments. She was afraid he would cry, or scream.

"Mindless arrogance! How I thought that poor widow would want to see me, of all people! Completely disrespectful of me, and everyone knew it! I should have stayed at Brocket Hall! She hated the very sight of me and who can blame her? I was tactless. One would have thought that, after all my experience, I may have learnt a thing or two about propriety! I cannot bear to think how I have hurt her! How could I have been such a damned fool?"

"William!"

Remembering himself somewhat, he stopped pacing and, hardly having time to take a breath, he panted,

"I apologise, Emma."

"It is not your language which offends me, William. It is your meaning. You may have been blind, but it was not arrogance that blinded you," she cried, advancing on the man with her head held just as high as his. Melbourne adored her strength and, for a second, considered arguing back at her again, just to provoke a reaction. But he did not. Instead, he pondered over her speech. If not his arrogance, then what? "And perhaps she was not upset to have seen you, simply-"

"When she saw me: she shuddered! Almost fainted! I could see the tears in her eyes! It made me feel wretched – to have been so short-sighted. And I knew every single person was looking at me, and thinking that I had returned for some suspicious motive, to take advantage of the poor widow, to seek my own interests in the wake of tragedy and do you know what scares me the most about that, Emma? I fear that all of them are right."

"How dare you say such a thing, William?" Emma shouted, "I do not believe for one second that your motive for returning to London was to take advantage of Victoria! And anyone who believes that cannot truly know you! Not as I do. You came back because you love her… Don't argue with me, I know how you feel about her. And I know how she feels about you. Your actions may not have been entirely wise, and may have caused her grief, but you were not to know how she would react and I believe, given time, she will be glad to have your company. Today must have been a shock for her, of course – she is distracted and mourning. But she would much rather have you here than at Brocket Hall! She will come to realise that. You are her oldest friend! Not a politician seeking his own gain. She understands that."

"I do not think you understand, Emma. When you are a widow, to see someone you-" He was about to say 'love' but could not bring himself to utter it. His heart was unwilling. His pride wary. He took a long breath before whispering, his voice trembling with the depth of his feeling, "I have hurt her."

Emma sighed and, casting her eyes to the ground, she replied,

"She will mend."

Lord Melbourne became suddenly more feverish, chest swelling and voice breaking into the air like a wave upon the rocks.

"And then what? You think she will just recover from the death of her husband? It is not a wound that heals!"

"Is that so, Lord Melbourne? Have you never healed? Have you never fallen in love again?" she tested, pleading with him to just stop over-thinking for once, to stop denying himself. _You are not the Prime Minister anymore, William. Put it away._

"You must not say this to me, Emma."

"Everyone I have spoken to is sympathetic to the Queen. She is a young widow. A second marriage may be acceptable – popular, even. I see no reason why, given time-"

"We cannot, Emma."

"Why not? You know I am the last person to speak unfavourably of the late Prince, William, but I also understand how life cannot end when one is heartbroken. You, of all people, should understand that. The Queen will need time to mourn but, being her lady, I know – first-hand – that she never really loved him. Liked him, yes. Will miss him, yes. But what she feels is guilt, and that may make her cold and distant. But guilt shall reconcile itself. Be patient. An English marriage would always have been popular, and you are no longer a politician."

"But I was. They'll all think-"

"You have always told me not to care about what others think." Melbourne shivered. She saw straight through him and the hole her gaze made let the draft pass through. "Listen to me, William: through this tragedy is the opportunity for the happiness I know you both deserve, and have always wished for. A happy epilogue, William."

Her words soothed him, opening the clouds to reveal strands of a sunlight that had been shut off from him for so long. Her words were like the promises of a God from a religion he did not recognise, preaching an alternative that seemed so easy, so clean, so pure. And he only had to reach out and clasp it and go tumbling into it and find what he had been searching so long for. His heart warmed, and a lightness played on his senses, before it steeled over and grew cold as he remembered the great shudder that had racked her body, her empty eyes welling with the saltwater of her widowhood, and all the advances he had shunned, the moments he'd missed, and the promise of tranquillity in his age. Caro had been quite enough for him. He must let her go.

He shook his head at Emma. And that was enough for her to understand. There was no convincing William Lamb, and that infuriated Emma. And, yet, she understood the depth of his sorrow, and so could not be truly angry at him for his self-denial. Also, more importantly, Emma understood that, however William tried to suppress and forget his desires, they would always come creeping back to him. And, one day, he would have to give in.

The Queen's screams had turned into silence. A dull heavy silence. The dull heavy silence clasped the little air which had grown cold and foul-smelling and lingered in the corners of the palace rooms and slurried their way down the staircases, pooling at the bottom in vapid ink swells. The Queen retreated into the highest rooms, where the ink slurry could not reach her, above the crest of its tar waves, and dwelt in a land unreachable. The unfitting window was the gasp of air she allowed herself, the small sliver of light that cracked through it lighting but a portion of the room. She would sometimes sit in the sliver of light and let it fall upon her face. She'd close her eyes and feel a small smattering of its warmth, buttery, and let a peace come about her for one moment. Then the guilt returned and she retreated, fumbling with her increased weight and unwieldy belly, into the unlit corners. No one saw her. And no one heard her. But, in the night of the 8th November, the screams returned. Louder. More agonised. Breaching out into the palace and rupturing the stillness.

The Queen fell into labour. And the palace, and the city of London, and the country, leapt from their beds. Crowds of politicians, clergymen, royals, lord and ladies, ladies of the bedchamber, mistress of the robes, mistresses of politicians, mistresses of royals, masters of households and masters of gossip assembled in leagues, the most important were clambered up inside the palace, outside the room where the doctors clamoured with the Queen, the less important in the street, awaiting news, and the least important – as far as he was concerned – Lord Melbourne had received word of the labour and was sitting on the very edge of his seat, at war with himself. He called for his manservant, and asked him to send a message.

The message was held on the lips on a horseback, and that horseback travelled swiftly through the London air – which was clearer tonight than it had been – and moved like a bolt to Lady Emma, who was seated outside the bedchamber, fighting the urge to bite her nails.

"Lord Melbourne says he understands that this is a difficult time, but he wishes to speak with you urgently."

Lady Emma stood, intrigued, thinking, and, knowing exactly what it was that was troubling the man, and exactly what would remedy the trouble, replied,

"He can come and speak to me here."

"But, forgive me-"

"Lord Melbourne was the Prime Minister of this country, and a dear friend of the Queen. He will not be turned away at the gates of the Palace, not at this time. I will welcome him myself. Tell him to come, and quickly."

The manservant called upon Lord Melbourne to come to the palace and, not needing to be persuaded, he thundered down on horseback through Hyde Park and Marble Arch and gained on the palace with roaring in the hooves of his horse and breath spouting in urgent clouds into the air before being whipped backwards with the speed of his approach. The sky was dark, but his way was lit clearly, and he could hear her heart calling out to him once again.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you._

He tethered his horse and tore into the palace, Emma Portman (intending to be the aid to his propriety) could hardly keep up with him and he bolted up the staircases towards the din outside the bedchamber. He could hear her cries, and followed them like a sailor to the pole star.

His entrance into the rubble was not unnoticed. In fact, far from it. The crowds, previously enraptured with the news from the bedchamber, turned rapidly to the source of all the noise and saw that it was the ex-Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, in tatters, cheeks red from his journey, chest heaving and straining against the shirt that had not been pressed and prepared for society, hair lolling in grey curls over his forehead. The ladies said he looked excessively romantic and handsome. The men said he looked like a damned fool. He did not heed the gossip, however, but took his place among the crowd and waited, impatiently, for news of the Queen. Her cries, each one, bore into him, and he wished nothing more than to be beside her at this time, holding her hand, telling her that she was strong enough and that she would be alright.

He wondered who was holding her hand. Her mother? Leopold? Lehzen?

He felt her agony, he felt her pain, he felt her loneliness and her grief, he felt her fear and her doubt. He felt it all, and wished that he could take it all from her and feel it all for himself. He felt the force of her creeping into him, doping him, and making him sick. She was everything to him. And he wanted her to know. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to see the child that she brought to this world. He wanted to hold the child, and comfort it, and care for it, as he had done long, long ago. He wanted to soothe the mother, gather her in his arms, breathe kisses into her hair, run thumbs along her back. He wanted to laugh with her again. He needed to talk to her again. He needed to love her.

The door opened briefly and a doctor slipped out. The Queen's screams had gone silent. The bodies collected outside convulsed. Everyone was thinking the same thing.

The Queen is dead.

"Queen Victoria has given birth to a Prince. The child is in full health."

"And what of the Queen?" A voice cried, voicing the thoughts of all others that were too afraid to ask it.

"The Queen is healthy."

A sigh broke out. Lord Melbourne turned to Emma, and thought he would weep.

The crowds dimmed, flickered out, as people filtered from the palace and returned to their own little worlds and their own little lives. Peel lingered, breathing an extended sigh of relief, and fervently thanking God for the gift of an heir. Even Wellington smiled. Emma Portman wanted to hold William in her arms, but stood at a distance and watched him, watched him calling out in silence for her. He remained for as long as he could, knowing he could not see the Queen and the new Prince, but driven by some strange hope that if he stayed for long enough they might let him in. Of course, it was a fanciful idea. The Queen was resting. She had not rested in a long time. No one could bear to wake her. The child was being seen to by the doctors. There were political matters to discuss and personal matters to maintain. Lord Melbourne knew it was his time to leave.

He stood up and, catching a glimpse of himself in the crystal mirror on the wall, he only just realised how dishevelled he looked. Tiredness riddled his face gaunt and he could see his own tears that he could no longer feel for they had been lying dormant there for so long. His necktie was crooked. He brought his unsteady hands around it and smoothed it down, lifting his unshaven chin, and adopting his urbane persona. The persona of a man who wasn't foolishly in love with the Queen. The persona of a man who hadn't been terrified of losing her. The persona of a man who wasn't anguished to be drawn away from her.

Just as he was turning to leave, passing a sad glance at Lady Emma, he was stopped by a doctor who had just crept from the bedchamber. The doctor was showing all the understandable signs of tiredness, the stress of delivering a child, but was oddly lively. Perhaps it was the effects of delivering a healthy heir, or keeping the Queen alive. The doctor moved with Melbourne to a place where they were unlikely to be overheard, as requested by the doctor himself. Melbourne was afraid. He hated being offered private information in the corner of a room by a man he was not completely familiar with. As a politician, it had happened to him on various occasions and the news, in his experience, was never welcome.

The doctor took on a more serious face and, declining his face so that it collected shadows and darknesses that would have been troubling to a man who wasn't so distracted as Melbourne, he began to explain something to him which, at first, Melbourne did not understand the relevance of,

"The Queen, in her agony, as in the case of many a woman suffering a difficult or long labour, became delirious."

Melbourne, not wishing to hear the details of a painful time for both her and him, hurried the doctor by replying,

"What is it you wish to tell me, sir?"

"I'm afraid I cannot give you an explanation as to why and forgive me if I am overstepping my mark but I feel I must tell you that, in her state of delirium, she called out for you, Lord Melbourne."

Lord Melbourne's emotions gushed into him, flooding him, overflowing within him and forcing a gasp from his throat just to catch air. He breathed,

"You must be mistaken. How could she have known I was there?" She could not have, Melbourne thought. There was no way of her knowing.


	7. Widow

Lehzen was at the door of the small room at the very top of the palace which Victoria was now calling her room, and she was knocking gently at the door, careful not to startle the creature within, careful not to frighten. Her fist barely tapped the wood, and her voice barely tapped the air.

"Majesty!" she half-whispered, "Majesty!" Lehzen could faintly hear a little rustling inside, no more than that of a dormouse, and decided it best to continue with her announcement, trusting that the Queen was listening. She had been dependent on trust for weeks now: hoping the Queen was listening. She hadn't yet replied. "Lord Melbourne has arrived. He is requesting an audience with you. He says it is of a matter of great importance."

There was a silence before another rustling from inside the room and then a voice broke out, odd in and amongst the rustles, jutting out of the silence like the creaking of a door.

"I cannot see him." It took a few seconds for Lehzen to recognise the voice of the Queen. It had been so long since she had heard her voice, and it was hoarser now than before, more empty. She had lost all her mirth. All her colour. All her youth; snuffed out in an instant. "I do not want him in the palace." The voice sounded as strong as it could possibly have been. What she lacked in clarity, she made up for in volume. Lehzen could not see that she had stood up against the door, her chin raised and her hands clasped together and donning the position of Queen. She had the ability to look regal, but it was only behind a closed door, and she felt her legs wobbling beneath her and her bottom lip trembling and her steely gaze turning weak.

"Shall I ask him to leave, Majesty?" Lehzen asked, leaning in closer to the door, still keeping her voice low despite the Queen's force. The reply came out without a tremble,

"At once."

Lehzen nodded, though the Queen could not have seen the curt gesture through the door, and began to walk away before she heard a rumble of footsteps and the click of the door, squealing as it was thrown open.

"Wait!"

It had been weeks since Lehzen had last seen Victoria – and she was transformed. Her face was sunken. She was smaller, frailer. She did not care for being pretty. She did not care for charm. Her eyes were dark. Circled in purple. No longer blue and quick and sharp. Her dress hung from her. She did not fill it. It wore her. She was limp. Like a ragdoll. She was not a young girl anymore. How could she be a governess to a woman? This woman had seen the world and all the suffering in it and had become hardened to it. Her hair had turned almost grey. She was catching creases on her face. She did not smile. There was no emotion on her face. Empty, like the face of one in a dreamless sleep. She was ageing. She was too young. Too young to be so old.

"Tell him to wait. I shall grant him an audience."

Victoria did not know why she had agreed to meet with the man she swore she would never see again. Some curiosity, perhaps. The need to settle things with him. The need to cast the blame on to him. To make him understand how she hated him. To make him understand how he had brought her nothing but grief. The strongest grief. To make him hurt as she did. Or, perhaps, something more tender, that she would never admit to herself.

She descended the staircase, took the passages to where she knew he would be, and felt a conflict pulling her apart. One side was tugging one way, the other tearing her the other way. She would rupture inside, she feared. She was tired. She hurt. She felt Lord Melbourne's presence. Unmistakable. It coursed through her. Prompting her. Bidding her.

When she saw Lord Melbourne, her old friend and often confidant, now turned to a face that brought her grief, she was struck by the state he was in. His hair was plastered to his forehead in clumps rather than the usual curls, dampened by the rain which drummed profusely on the window, through which a little light was offered to make his wet cheek gleam. His nose was practically dripping, and his coat almost soaked through. She knew by how fervently he was rubbing his hands together that they were ice cold. She knew, if she were to hold them, they would be wet and half-frozen. She saw a face she had loved, so much, and had sought her out on the back of her eyelids day and night, that voice, his words. She felt the company that she once adored. But now it made her cold.

When he saw Victoria, his last love and his pupil, he almost broke his own heart, faltering on the edge of something agonising, holding himself together with the thinnest twine. Her hair was held up from her face by her own doing: it hadn't the fine craftsmanship of her maid, but was drawn back and up, leaving clumps and curls over her forehead and around her ears. Her dress, Melbourne thought, was the same that she had borne to the funeral, but she had lost the lace shawl and veil, and had lost the dignity with which she held herself, and now she was crumpled. He knew by how hollow her eyes were that she had cried all her tears away. He had remembered doing such a thing once, and he was sure he would do again if he had the strength. She was daubed in black and Melbourne did not think it at all suited her. He wanted her to wear pink again, and blue. And white. Oh, how he wished to see her in white.

"You are wet," she said, before anything else. Looking him up and down as if he were an item on display. A common figure. Melbourne allowed himself a laugh, thinking it appropriate, when it was not,

"Indeed, your Majesty."

"You came all this way by horse?" A flicker of something warm passed through Victoria's body. He came to see her. He came all this way just for her. The young girl in her cried out. The lover in her would have swooned. The warmth grew, creeping through her. But she promptly extinguished it.

"I came to enquire into your Majesty's health."

"I do not know why you felt obliged to come, Lord Melbourne," she replied, unfeelingly, remembering herself and the person she had sworn to be, turning her body away from him. The sight of him made bile rise in her throat. She wanted to close her eyes and banish him from her mind. She was afraid of him. She was afraid of how she felt about him. She clamped her mouth shut. Her eyes became steel.

There was no easy conversation, of course. Melbourne had expected it to be difficult but the reality was far more crippling. The Queen's mouth was rigid and tight-lipped. She was unforgiving, a closed book, an envelope without a knife. It was like trying to talk to a wall of stone, marble. Cold to the touch. No response.

"How is your son? And your daughter?"

"I do not know. I have not seen them."

"Edward, isn't it, Ma'am?"

"Yes. But I have not seen him," Victoria replied. Her voice was so cold. It chilled Melbourne. It sent a draft into the room. It made the air frigid. It made the birds shiver and stop singing. It made the rain freeze. Blood froze. Lungs struggled. Filled with ice. Melbourne fought it,

"You have not seen your new son?"

"No. I do not wish to see him."

"Ma'am, forgive me, but you are a mother. Do you not wish to be a mother to your children? They are the greatest blessings."

"I have never understood that. I tried to be a mother to Victoria. I did try. But she makes me cold. I don't like her touching me. She has cold little hands. And she's not at all pretty. I don't… I don't _like_ her."

Lord Melbourne remembered his own children, selfishly, in that moment stood before his sovereign: exposed, vulnerable, at her mercy. He allowed his mind to drift back, billowing into the past. He remembered sweet George. His boy. Holding his hand in the night. That grip: as only a son holds on to his father. Growing into a man. Grasped. Taken. Turned cold. He thoughts back. Caro's screams caught his wandering mind and stilled it. It was held there. Shaking. He felt it, in that moment. As if he were living it again.

The calls from a doctor. She has gone into labour. She cannot have. It is too early. Too early. No. No. She is screaming. Sweating. Tossing. Turning. Hold her down. Hold her still. She has taken to the bed. Which bed? Where? Heartbeat. Metal. What are they doing? What is that? She is not strong enough for childbirth. She is calling for you. William. William. The name is screamed. The name is cried. You can only hear the name. She is not strong enough. George is lucky to be alive. Where is George? George? Your mother is sick. Do not be afraid. She is fine. Hold my hand. Your hand is so small in mine. Hold my hand, my little boy. My little boy. She is weak. Weaker still. Where has the light gone? Where is the doctor? Where is William? I'm here, my darling. I'm here. I'm here. _Shh._ You are strong enough. She is not strong enough. You are brave enough. She is not brave enough. You will live. She won't live. The child will not live. Where is George? He is fine. He is safe. Don't think. They are hurting me. Tell them to leave. I will die. I will die if they stay. No. Be strong. The doctors are here for you. They will help you. I love you. Leave the room. Shut the door. Wait. Hours. Hours? Screaming. Sweating. Crying. Wanting to hold her hand. Wanting to sleep. Silence. Crying. Dreaming? Crying. Again. A daughter. A daughter? A young daughter! Let me see her! Let me see her! My child. Mine. A girl. She is small. So small. How so small? No. Her eyes. They won't open. What colour? Taken away. Give her back. My daughter. Caro. Caro. She is alive. She is fine. She is weak. She is hurt. George is fine. George is ill. George is asleep. George is afraid. Where is she? My daughter? Where is she?

Dead.

Within hours. Let me see her. Please. No. Too small. Too early. Too young.

"Lord Melbourne?"

He was brought back into the room with her bidding. He blinked away the past and the tears with it, and his cheeks tinged pink in embarrassment. He had lost himself. He cleared his throat, and continued,

"You have two children living, Ma'am. You are very lucky."

Victoria was about to protest that she did not feel lucky or blessed or however he put it – but, in that moment when he drifted away from the room, she saw an acute grief pass over his face, like a shadow, and she knew what he had thought of, and she did not wish to cause him more grief, no matter how she told herself that she did not care. Her mind wanted to wound him, but her heart was too reluctant.

"I wish I could love them, Lord Melbourne," she choked, her gaze turning away from him, clasping her hands tightly together. "But I see them and I-" Her voice became nothing. Only air. And that air was filled with the thick hum of unshed tears, held only just below the surface. Her chin trembled and her eyes welled with saltwater and it was with all the effort she could muster that she kept herself from breaking down. Her throat stung. The throbbing in her head pained her.

"You must not blame them for what happened, Ma'am."

A scornful laugh rose from her lips. It burnt William's ears.

"I do not blame them. Why should I blame them? What have they done?" she cried in a bout of almost maniacal energy. Melbourne could have been afraid of her, had he not seen bouts similar to these a thousand times before. He held out a hand to the Queen, not for her to hold, but for her to understand that he meant her no harm. He held it out to her as a keeper does to an animal. And, if she were an animal, she would _bite_. "They did no sin!" she shouted, directly at him, bullets in her words. His hand faltered, lowering, his body receiving the wounds. "It is not them who will be made to pay for what they did!" Her voice became a shriek. Her tears would fall if anger were not holding them static. "We have sinned!"

Melbourne's body took a great blow. He shuddered, and his shoulders collapsed inwards, as if a great force had cracked his chest, and sent him staggering backwards. Wind was forced from his lungs and, with it, the stammered word,

"Ma'am?"

"Do you not understand, Lord Melbourne? What we have done? We killed him!"

 _Killed him?_ What had they done? Melbourne's head was full of bees. Albert had died of typhoid fever. That was what the doctors had said. That was what Emma had told him. That was what the newspapers had reported. That was the word on everyone's lips. Murder? What murder? She was not talking sense. The buzzing heightened.

"It is our love that killed him. I never appreciated him. Never truly loved him. I was cruel, so cruel, and all because of a fancy! Something fleeting! Because I couldn't bring myself to move on! Because I was acting like a little girl, not a woman! And it killed him. I cannot forgive myself. I do not care what you have to say to me, Lord Melbourne. Nothing you can say with heal any of my wounds. Nothing you can do will bring him back!"

Melbourne did not hesitate, did not think, before rambling a reply, throwing his arms out, exposing himself. Surrendering.

"If I could, I would give my life for him. If I knew it would make you happy. I would die a thousand times for it. I wish I could!"

"Don't say that." Victoria was pacing, her heart bursting.

"Why not?"

"Don't!"

"I only want you to be happy! That is all I have ever desired!" Melbourne cried, forgetting everything of his position and his tact and his gentlemanly manner. Damn all of it. He spoke, no, he cried with a fire that society had purged from him upon entering it as a young man. The instinct. The animal inside clawing to be heard and to be loud and to be real. The mind blazing through the surface. Tired of being shut away, being clipped, being hidden. Tired of its true meaning being obscured by manners and polite society. Tired of the dust. Wanting to burn. It burned bright and hot as he cried, "I want to make you happy, Victoria!"

His passion silenced Victoria. Struck dumb. Feeling little and offended. Feeling confused. She had not felt silence like that in so long. Stunned silence, in her voice and her mind. She looked him up and down, replayed the fervour in his voice over and over in her head, and it scared her to think that she had never wanted to kiss him more than she did at that very moment. To run her fingers, scratching, through those still dampened curls, to taste his lips, feel the rise and fall of his breath and share in it, breathe in what he breathed out, to soak up his passion and kiss it back into him, moan against his mouth, feel his tremble passing through to her. Nothing would be so glorious. It would stink of sin. She would do it if she did not fear God.

She closed her eyes, dismissing the desire that came creeping to her, into her, and sought strength before continuing,

"How can you say this to me, Lord Melbourne? How can you be so cruel?" Lord Melbourne fire was being suffocated again. "I gave you so many chances. All of which you turned down. All of them. And now you come to me and say all these things that I wished you had said before. You say them when I cannot accept them. You take the offers I once gave to you when I have taken them all back! You turned me away at Brocket Hall! And then you wrote me a letter, saying you would wait for me, for me to live with you in heaven! Where we can be together! Do you not understand how that hurt me? And now you come back, when you understand that I cannot accept you, and hurt me more with these… these… words!" Her tears fell freely now. Gasps racked her body. She choked on them. "You are too late!" An apology, a form of repentance, turned to smoke in his lungs. "I cannot do this. I cannot." And she turned to smoke too, for she turned and fled and disappeared, footsteps through the palace, dissolving into nothing, bounding away from him, into the indeterminable nothing. The footsteps left him and he found nothing in their wake. A cloying emptiness. A creeping. Catching in his throat. Making everything worse. He had done it. He had made everything worse.

Society was there for a reason, he told himself. It was there to stop people making things worse. He must remember to stifle the fire in the future. Always stifle the fire. Deprive it of oxygen. Turn it to smoke.

A crack. A smash? What was that? From upstairs. How much time had passed? Nothing was sure. Nothing was clear. All blurred as if gauzed over with a veil, black and vapid. The Queen. Victoria. He was moving before he had time to think. His feet carrying him, a cloud beneath him, to where he knew she was. How did he know? He could not have known. He felt. He did not know but rather felt. Like a string bound around his chest, too tight to breathe, knotted, dragging him against his will, against his better judgement, towards the soul that needed him. Hers. The beating of his feet against the staircases and the beating of the rain against the window and the beating of his brain against his skull and the beating of his heart against his lungs and his lungs beating against his ribcage and his veins throbbing and beating against his skin, paper thin, transparent, all restless and trembling, all taut.

His string sent him tumbling towards the Queen's chamber. The fire forced him to enter.

The Queen was stood, her arms falling tightly against her, a shard of glass clasped tightly in her left hand, and a scattering of light at her feet: a small puddle of shards, fracturing the light into a million rainbows. They blinded him. Her right arm, her forearm, was held out in front of her, soft and white, catching the colours of a rainbow, intact, but the edge of the glass trembling above the skin, ready to fall, ready to fall.

He had seen the scene before. He had been here before. He acted.

Victoria, frozen in that moment, was caught in Lord Melbourne's arms, ensnared, her cheek against the bristles of his overcoat, her small frame wrapped in his arms, her nose tickling as she breathed in aniseed and tobacco and parchment and all the smells that had become so distinctly _him_. The glass, cold and alien in her hand, was taken from her by a hand that was larger, rougher, and more familiar to her than her own. Her grasp fell open for him, unclasping and blooming like a gardenia, and letting loose the razor edge which he took without hesitation. Without fear. That hand took her harm. The hand that had led her in dances. The hand that had soothed her. Led her from carriages. Led her into the world. Led her through fear. Fought her uncertainty. Soothed her grief. The hand that held hers whilst it was kissed. The hand that had stroked gently over hers against the bleak cawing of the rooks. The hand that she had placed her love within, written down in a scrawling hand, urgent. The hand that she dreamt about. Caught her love. Catching it. She was bound against him, wrapped within him, held as tightly as possible. And, as her mind cleared and her eyes closed, she could hear words whispered in the voice that had never left her,

"Not again."

They shared a little moment's calm, once Melbourne had cleared the glass and calmed the Queen, sat her down on the bed, and allowed her to breathe. No anger. No pain. No grief. No angst, or sadness, or regret. A simple state of existing. A thing they had once shared often, but had not done in a long time. Victoria finally found the strength to speak, after the silence that they found themselves in.

"You will not tell anyone, I trust," she said, barely able to meet the man's eye. Melbourne shook his head and replied, earnestly, that he would not even think of it. It would remain between them and them alone. He could not bear the thought of doctors coming to prod and poke at her. Like they had done to Caro. It had only made her pain more agonising. It had only made the depression more acute. It had only make the hysteria stronger. He had learnt from that mistake.

When Victoria spoke again, she was hesitant with him. It was a tone she had not used towards him in a long time. He had missed it.

"When you found me, you said 'not again'… but I have never done anything like that before."

Melbourne's voice broke out with too much force to be believable,

"I was confused, Ma'am. Forgive me."

Victoria remembered how his expression clouded over when he had something to hide. She remembered how his mouth formed a hard line, and his eyes became dull. She knew that face too well. She did not speak to him, but looked at him. Not with harshness. Not a jot of harshness. The shine in her eyes, instead, pleaded with him. To be honest with her. After everything that had happened. Just be honest. Please. He took in her gaze. He processed it. He thought about it. He took a deep breath, understanding that gleam in the blue and what it meant. He tried to escape the past, desperately, but he was a man who lived in it. Always. No escape from it.

"Caro tried to… kill herself. Did I ever tell you that?" he asked, his voice more fragile now than ever. It showed his age. Creaking like the door to a mind that had seen many, many things and had a surfeit of stories to tell. A mind that ached and suffered pains but still stood on strong enough foundations to keep it steady amongst the beating wind and torrential rain. A door that held the barricade against the cruel and the cold, and harboured the warmth inside. Despite the cruelty and the bitter cold, the warmth remained. Victoria shook her head, finally able to really _look_ at him. She saw the sadness in those eyes: green, soft and sweet like the skin of an olive, but shimmering with life, something gold, something rich, something she treasured. "A few times. The strain of George – my son – became too much for her. He was very ill. We didn't know what to do. And after our daughter… died… she took it very badly. She fell into a bout of terrible depression. Byron made things worse, of course. She felt worthless. Nothing I could do seemed to ease any of her pain. I don't suppose I really tried. I was proud. Foolish. She would hurt herself… I couldn't stop her." His voice broke. Victoria's body jolted when she realised that Lord Melbourne was crying. She had never seen him cry. She never thought she would. Not like this. Real sobbing. Tears falling from his eyes, down his cheeks. His voice hoarse and throat tight. Body convulsing. Shaking. Uncontrollable. Weakness. Purity. The most real she'd ever seen him. "Nothing… nothing… hurt me more than seeing her there. Pale and desperate. The woman I fell in love with, driven to madness." He stopped and heaved. He thought he would be sick. Victoria almost reached out to hold him, she wanted to, but felt paralysed. Tears. He sobbed. Victoria couldn't bear it. Her heart would break. He knew he should stop; but he could not. His heart was breaking. "I once drew a finger… across where she had hurt herself… she allowed me to do it… and I imagined that I was healing her, with my touch. She gasped when I did it. Took in a breath: winced. I thought I had done something. I wished. But… when I brought my finger away… the skin was broken and there was blood…" He trembled. His voice trembled. His hands clasped his mouth. Tears. He cried. Like a child.

Victoria could see the pain of a widower. Victoria could see the pain she felt. She could see it all. All the agony crippling her heart, twisting branches around her veins, seizing her and poisoning her, projected on to him. He hurt just as much as she did. He cried just as much as she did: with just as much force, as much pain.

They were not enemies in this.

She was a widow. He, a widower.

Her hand reached across the air and brushed gently on to his cheek. Her thumb swiped away a tear. She banished it from him. Took it for herself. He continued to cry. Heaving. Heaving. Pulsing like a heartbeat. Shaking. His trembling passed through her fingers, budding through her arm, passing through and striking her very core. Her palm pressed softly – oh, so softly – on his cheekbone and tentative fingers ghosted over his temple, catching his hair and stroking it. He closed his eyes, her touch scorching him. He would swear his face was glowing, radiating a golden light, and he felt a peace. His crying softened. He felt her pain, too. They shared it. He felt her love. His own hand, still shaking, hesitant, clasped that hand which cupped his cheek, and held it tightly. Never to let go. Thumb crossing over her knuckles. Fingers folding over her hand.

Sat on the bed in the highest room in Buckingham Palace, painted in rainbows scattered by shards of glass, foreheads meeting, breath melding, crying, hands learning and teaching, were Victoria and William. Widow and widower.


	8. Opera

Sir Robert Peel was fumbling with the cloth of his necktie, crossing it over and dropping it, picking it up again and folding it in the wrong direction, his frustration exacerbating the dilemma until his face had become a particular shade of pink which humoured his wife, standing in the doorframe, looking to where her husband readied himself – unsuccessfully. Sighing, playfully, and finally moving to her husband, standing in between him and the mirror, she took the two ends of his necktie and tied it herself.

Lady Peel thought of how flustered her husband seemed today. He flitted. He wasn't a flitterer. His sleep last night was disturbed and he had taken quite quickly and quite suddenly to snuff-taking – a pursuit that Lady Peel found unsavoury and did not think at all suited her husband. Lady Peel concluded by consoling herself in the thought that this was due to her husband's first visit to the Queen since the Prince Consort's death. Understandably, his nerves were in tatters.

Robert Peel stood like a child, having his necktie tied for him, until his wife stood back, admiring her handiwork, and asked, quite out of the blue,

"Is it Lord Melbourne?"

Robert Peel hesitated.

"Is what Lord Melbourne?"

"Did _he_ persuade the Queen to see you?"

Robert Peel scoffed.

"I do not know. I certainly hope not."

"Has he spoken to her?"

Robert Peel sighed.

"I have not heard anything, Julia."

"I hope he has," Lady Peel replied, a little wistfully. Only a little. But enough to pique her husband's interest.

"What makes you say that?"

"The Queen could use someone like him," Lady Peel said, as if it were the simplest fact in the world. Robert Peel obviously did not find the fact so simple, for he appeared baffled and coughed,

"You have always spoken very dimly of Lord Melbourne!"

"I am a loyal wife. It is my duty to be supportive of you in everything. And, in my support, I am forced to conform to your anti-Whig principles. But you know I am not interested in politics, Robert! I know people as people, and I know Lord Melbourne as a charming and kind man. Oh, don't look so jealous – I'm not going to run off with him! I just think that his return to London is not all doom and gloom. Particularly as the Queen was so fond of him!"

"It is worse if the Queen is fond of him!" Sir Robert cried, exasperated, almost dislodging his newly tied necktie. "We cannot have a widowed Queen being tempted by a Whig politician!" Lady Peel's cheeks coloured as she raised her voice slightly to her husband,

"Tempted? The Queen is not a little girl: she knows her own mind. She's feisty – you've experienced that first-hand, my love. The lady is not one to be 'tempted' as you put it. And, besides, she is heartbroken. If William Lamb can aid her healing, there is nothing wrong with that!"

"Try telling that to my ministry!" Sir Robert exclaimed, practically hearing the jeers and the ruffling of papers thrust into the air, waved back and forth, wafting gusts of air into his eyes.

"I might sound common, but I see nothing wrong with an intimacy between the Queen and Lord Melbourne. I'd rather have that than have the Queen of England mourn for the rest of her life! And I am sure most of her subjects would agree with me. Lord Melbourne's relationship with the Queen seems only to scare Tories." Lady Peel laughed. It could have offended Sir Robert, if she did not laugh so enchantingly.

"Is it any wonder? He'll be going back into politics before I know it."

"Why does that worry you, Robert? You have nothing to fear of William Lamb," she replied, moving back to the doorframe, a faint wisp of her perfume – honeysuckle – remaining in the air that she left behind. Robert Peel dispelled the scent with the force of his voice,

"I am the son of a mill owner! I've always had to argue my case. I hoped, when he left, that I wouldn't have to live up to the standards set by men like him. Lord Melbourne… he is an aristocrat, a charmer, a man of card games and ballrooms. He will be able to exert influence over the Queen yet again. He is a thoroughly Georgian man."

" _A Georgian man?_ What good is a Georgian man? We are living in a new era, Robert. The country needs a Victorian man."

Robert Peel simply laughed into the mirror, turning a little pink again and, looking back at his wife, he thought of how lucky he was to have a woman like her. He should have taken a social butterfly, a hostess: a woman like Lady Lamb or the Duchess of Devonshire; thought of as charming and beautiful, women of character and exquisite taste, women who are hard work but excellent lovers, hysterical but wonderful dancers. But he had chosen the dark-eyed Julia Floyd, the cavalry officer's daughter. Thank God.

"We've never been social animals, have we, Julia?" Peel asked, smiling fondly at her. Lady Peel let out a small laugh and, moving back to him brightly, she lay an affectionate hand on her husband's lapel and cried,

"Do you wish to start now? I shall make a blancmange! Now all we need is a ballroom installed. Do you know anyone capable of the task?"

"Are you teasing me, Lady Peel?"

"Never, Sir Peel!" Her eyes flashed. "Now, the Queen is calling for you," she cried, stomping her foot, and throwing her chest out, speaking like a soldier: a skill she had learnt from meetings with Peel's political associate, the Duke of Wellington (and a skill she found quite humorous). "You have been complaining for weeks of how she has refused to see you and if you delay any longer I fear she will change her mind! Then perhaps Lord Melbourne will be forced to form a ministry, and you will complain even more! And I will be so aggrieved that I will be forced to run away with him! And then you will complain all by yourself whilst I am far, far away at Brocket Hall, wrapped in his arms, and crying 'Thank goodness I am rid of that troublesome Peel!'"

"I often forget how taxing you can be, Lady Peel," he smiled, opening the door, and leaving for Buckingham Palace.

As the carriage proceeded towards the looming expanse of wall, broken only by the brandishing crystal windows, Robert Peel, taking light relief from the little sunshine that was on this day poking its head through the clouds, pondered on what his wife had said. Lord Melbourne's return did frighten him: she was right. It frightened him because a renewal of the courtship, the – dare he say it – romance between the two, was not at all in Tory interests. His grasp on the Queen was unsafe. His influence, in addition to the influence of her Whig ladies, could prove disastrous for his party. Disastrous for England, even, having a politically partial Queen, and a Queen interested in a romantic liaison with someone entirely unsuitable. It would surely cause a constitutional crisis!

But Lady Peel did not think so.

Robert Peel knew his wife, the dark-eyed cavalry officer's daughter, to be very well tuned in to the mood of the general population. She had often provided invaluable advice to him as a politician, for she was impartial, empathetic and simple – though not unintelligent. Perhaps, if she believed that Lord Melbourne's relationship with the Queen was more of a help than a hindrance, others would agree.

Something uneasy found its way into Peel's consciousness: the thought that, perhaps, it would after all be in his interests to allow the Queen and Lord Melbourne to conduct themselves as they wished. Lord Melbourne was no longer the Prime Minister. And, if it would make the Queen happy, allow her to heal, give her a source of guidance. No. What was he thinking? He did not yet know whether the Queen had spoken to the man, let alone been charmed by him. The last Robert Peel had seen of the pair they had almost swooned in grief upon seeing each other. A situation in which he would need to give his approval to a romance between Queen Victoria of England and William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne? It would not come to that, Robert Peel told himself, trundling between the union flags lining the road past St James' Park and enjoying a strange winter warmth in his bones that he had not felt in a long time, it would not come to that.

The carriage came to a stop outside the palace, and Peel could already feel a change in attitude. The servants who met him at the door to take his coat and hat were solemn as one would expect, but hadn't the dark circles and creased foreheads he had seen them with at the birth of the prince. They greeted him, and seemed happy to have him there, and he was happy to be there, standing in the finery and the grandeur and finally feeling important again. Finally feeling like a Prime Minister again. The crystal windows, glinting; the crystal chandelier, glinting; and the glasses and bottles, glinting, all made Robert Peel feel contented. The room was a familiar one, lined all over in a fresh green, zesty and spring-like, like the softest green grass under footfall, running beside a dazzling lake in the sunshine. Painted details, fine and dark, were on the walls and the bookcases and the portraits: the curvature of a silvery willow branch, the flap of a waxwing and the dive of a wren, the fall of a sparrow, the outstretched hand of a woman, unfurling to be touched. The fresh, leafy green melded with golds, brandishing, and the result was almost pearlescent, the melting of colours into one another, gleaning all together into one description: royalty.

The door creaked, just a little, when the door was opened to herald the Queen's entrance into the sitting room.

She was still dressed in black, of course, but the garments were not nearly as cumbersome, as heavy, as dire and as swallowing as they had been when Sir Robert had last seen her. She still grieved, and the pangs of grief wrought her face with tiredness, but she no longer screamed so and cried so and Sir Robert could recognise a little light in her blue eyes.

He kissed her hand and, although it felt cold, it pulsed with life.

"How glad I am to be able to meet with you again, your Majesty!" Robert Peel said, feigning his best smile. It was not an easy smile, but it sufficed. Queen Victoria feigned a smile, too, a weak one, but it, too, sufficed. She knew she owed the man an explanation: Queen or not.

"I have been made aware of the importance of my duties, Sir Robert. I understand, now, that I must return to my country," she explained, clasping her hands in front of her, holding her chin up. "I mourn… but, I feel that with… help… I shall smile in the future." Her heart tugged. Sir Robert, showing an unusual glimmer of true feeling, a thing that Victoria was well-adjusted to noticing, creased his brows, pulled his lips into a sad smile, and looked warmly at the young Queen. Pity? No, not pity, something more: something like respect, care. Something she did not expect from Peel, but felt light upon seeing it.

"How is the young Prince?" Sir Robert asked, out of gentility, drawing the light out of the Queen, not knowing the potency of what he said. It struck Victoria to the core, and with a great effort, she replied that the Prince was well, healthy, and in the care of a nursemaid. Sir Robert felt that he had overstepped some invisible mark.

"I am glad to hear it, Ma'am. Shall we look through the dispatches?"

Victoria heard the words in another's voice. It made her gasp. Those green eyes caught her mind. She banished them. Not now, she thought.

"Yes. An excellent idea."

The pair, ancient – Queen and Prime Minister – the very lungs of the greatest Empire on Earth, gathered at the table beside the window, there the bare branches of a December tree trembled in the unexpected balm of the weather and tap-tapped against the window, setting a pitch and a time for their meeting, and making the meeting musical.

Sir Robert Peel did not want to ask the Queen the question which was bubbling in his brain since he had first crossed through Marble Arch but he knew he could not leave the palace without asking it. The time leading to the inevitable question moved slowly but, finally, finding the courage to ask something which could produce an unwanted reaction, he spoke slowly,

"Have you met with Lord Melbourne, your Majesty?"

The Queen started upon hearing his name, but collected herself like a monarch, and replied,

"Why should you think that, Sir Robert?" she spoke slowly, with a little too much intrigue to make the intrigue convincing. Sir Robert understood that he was treading on unsteady ground. He had been lucky to get this far; he knew he must be careful.

"I mean no disrespect to your Majesty: I just couldn't help but wonder if it was he who persuaded you to return to your duties. I know how he has been an invaluable source of guidance to you, Ma'am."

Victoria, holding one of the today's papers in a grip that was quickly becoming vice-like (almost tearing the paper, or creasing it badly), did not know how to reply. In truth, he had done. In truth, he had given her an affinity. The purest and most potent form of existence with another soul: a shared understanding, an energy, indeterminable and frightening, fastening two souls together as one. He had offered her the most powerful healing. He had helped her to understand her grief, that pain, unimaginably painful. He had helped her to confront the pain, feel it, swallow it, and continue. He taught her to do what he had done, after his own agony. He taught her before. He would teach her again. In truth, Lord Melbourne had saved her life. But Sir Robert Peel, Victoria feared, would not understand the depth of feeling they had shared, the affinity they now held, and would fear that Lord Melbourne was not being kind. She could not bear to think that anyone would believe his motives were anything less than just. He meant so much to her and she knew that he did not wish to influence her, or change her in any way. She treasured what they had, and she did not want Sir Robert to make it something dirty. Furthermore, after being so averse to Lord Melbourne a few months ago, Sir Robert would think her silly. It was not silliness that made her mind flitter. Something far more tender.

She gulped.

"I am well aware of my duties with or without Lord Melbourne. He is an old friend of mine and, at this difficult time, he is welcome at the palace if he should wish to see me. I can assure you, Sir Robert, that Lord Melbourne is not a parent to me, scolding me for not doing my duty, and setting me straight. I am perfectly capable of that myself."

"Of course, Ma'am. I apologise. I sincerely hope his… his friendship can offer you comfort at this time."

A silence ensued. It was thick.

Perhaps it was the musicality of the tap-tapping tree on the window panes, perhaps it was the mention of Lord Melbourne, perhaps it was simply necessity, or gentility, but Sir Robert Peel – as his next order of business – suggested that the Queen come to the opera tonight. An opera? Tonight? She had no idea. Why hadn't anyone told her? I suppose her ladies assumed she would not want to go. She was a little surprised that she had taken warmly to the idea at all. She was struck with the thought that, perhaps, it would not be decent of her to go, as a widow. However, why would Sir Robert have suggested it if it were not appropriate? There was no one more conscientious of propriety than her Peel. Who would be there? Sir Robert would be there. A few leading Tories were sure to attend. It was Mozart, after all, and there was an appreciation for Mozart among politicians, royalty and common men alike. Who could object to Mozart? Surely there was no greater composer in all history! The great high oboe in the third movement of Mozart's Serenade No.10 had burst out its note into Victoria's mind, and it brought a tear to her eye. Victoria's ladies would definitely like to come along with her. Leading Whigs would show their faces too. Lord Melbourne, surely, yes. Lord Melbourne appreciated Mozart very much.

Victoria did decide to go to the opera. Dressed in black, donning a brave face, she would grace her citizens, to tell them that she had not shirked them, and to tell them that she still in love with music.

The carriage ride was an uncomfortable one, and Victoria fidgeted, struck silent. It was unnerving for the Queen to be so silent; Lady Emma and Lady Harriet glanced at each other every few seconds, both wanting to break the silence but neither possessing the right words to do so. To see a woman who had previously been an incorrigible talker or an agonised screamer sat in such silence was disturbing. It chilled the blood. Emma was afraid that the Queen would not have the strength to go to the opera, to show her face. It was still so soon. However, Lady Emma also knew why it was that the Queen was showing her face. William had soothed her, of course. Lady Emma noticed all. This change had occurred that day when it rained, and he had met her at the palace. She noticed the change in William, too: he was sadder – as if he had remembered something of his past grief – but he glowed. He was feeling something strong and strange, and Emma could see it. An affinity.

Lady Emma knew that this was healthy, for both of them, to see each other at the opera.

There was a hushed stirring, like the ruffle of birds taking to wing at the slightest disturbance, when the Queen exited her carriage, inky but dignified, and was led by her ladies towards the royal box. There were a few mutters, but mostly a shocked silence, the bated breath that comes with expectations of a storm, waiting to breathe again. Later that night, when talking to their husbands or wives or mistresses, the people would say that the Queen looked majestic. For she did.

She took her seat, beside her ladies, feeling a twinge when the seat that would once have held her dear Albert was filled with another body. The red curtain was closed. The stage lights were beaming. The instruments were being tuned. Long, disjointed notes. Out of kilted. Out of tune. Slowly refined, distilled, until their notes were liquor to the ears. Doping the senses. The little faces of hundreds of little people were lit up by the light, and their eyes were glinting, all turned on her.

Lord Melbourne, once, would have had a place in the royal box, behind her, in front of the curtain, where he would have stood, harbouring a glass of port, and looking intensely handsome in the low light. But he was Prime Minister no longer and, so, could not have a place in the royal box. But he would be here, Victoria reminded herself, scanning, scattering, over the faces, trying to ignore the fact that every eye was looking at her. He would be here. He would be here. He would be here.

There.

In the box, nearly opposite her, sat in the front row, eyes turned down, though Victoria knew that – before she had caught his face – they were looking at her, was William Lamb. Oh, how handsome he looked in the low light. A gold in the green. Something pearlescent. Something dark, fine. Silver in his hair. A flickering across his face, catching the shadows. His eyes moved. Blinking. Turning up. Fixing on her. He did not turn them away again. She did not turn her's away. The distance between them melted. Victoria could feel his breath on her neck. She could feel his hand brushing over the back of hers. She could see him go to speak, the word catching in his throat.

The lights fell, and the opera began.

Victoria, frustrated that their moment of intimacy had been interrupted, could hardly concentrate on a single aria. Where she would normally have been absorbed, she was restless, her skin still feeling hot. Lord Melbourne felt just the same. Mozart be damned.

The interval was welcomed. The auditorium was lit once more, and Victoria's eyes immediately went back to Lord Melbourne, and his to her. They scoured each other once again, trying desperately to tell each other something, without words, only through glances. Something in the rise and fall of Victoria's chest spoke sonnets to Lord Melbourne. Something in the flickering gold in the green eyes of Lord Melbourne caught the heart of Victoria. Something in Melbourne's tears and Victoria's trembling told the other that they were loved.

 _I love you. I love you. I love you._

"Lady Emma," Victoria breathed, her voice hoarse without use, not taking her eyes from Lord Melbourne, "do you see Lord M over there?" she asked. Emma stifled a smile at the name: Lord M, and looked as if she were looking around for him, though she knew by the intensity of the Queen's gaze exactly where he sat. Lady Emma said she thought she saw him. "Would it be advisable for me to invite him into the royal box?" Victoria asked in genuine innocence, with all the desperation of a young lover, never been in love before. Would it be advisable? Not at all. But Lady Emma was of the persuasion that one could get far too caught up in the avoidance of scandal and, in the forbearance of it, deny oneself all the pleasure and zeal of life that made it worth living. If everyone felt like Lady Emma, then there would be no problem in William sitting in the royal box. Emma hoped that either everyone felt like her, or everyone was so absorbed in the Mozart that they failed to notice. She told the Queen that she would go to him, and did so, promptly.

Victoria could see, from her seat in the royal box, Lord Melbourne's hesitancy. It filled her with dread. She bore her gaze more deeply into him: please, William, do not heed society. Allow us this. Please. His face carried waves, pulsing like the tide, eyes flickering from person to person, all of which he feared, his paranoia leading him to believe that every single person there would think their actions scandalous. He would not dream of bringing dishonour to the crown. To Victoria. He would sooner die. But Victoria wished it, more than anything. Her eyes said it. Emma reminded him of it. Melbourne knew it. And, heeding the call of the fire once again, he rose from his seat and followed his old friend towards the royal box. He knew he was being a fool.

But, upon seeing his sweet Victoria, the foolishness became meaningless.

How could it be foolish? To wish the company of such a woman? She looked radiant. Renewed. Alive. Her eyes dazzled. The inky black smothering her did nothing to extinguish her flame. She wanted him. He could see it. She invited him. She wished for him. He heeded it. He heeded it all. Submitting to it. The low light consuming him, he brought himself to the seat beside her, and said nothing. He did not need to speak to her. Anything he said would be nothing compared to what his eyes could give her. To what his soul could give her. The affinity.

No one could see, for it was hidden behind the railing of the box, but if anyone could see, it would cause scandal harsh enough to scorch the crown and melt it. If anyone could have seen their hands.

William's hand crept towards the Queen's – resting softly on the satin folds of her dress – and ghosted across it, brushing ever so softly across the skin, sensitive, before curling around and clasping. Mozart swelled. Victoria's cheeks burned. The music roared. Victoria and William. Widow and widower. Lovers, in secret.

 _I love you. I love you. I love you._


	9. Biscuits

Victoria's hand was unclasped with the last note of the opera and, as the thunderous applause consumed, almost drowning out Victoria's voice, she took the opportunity to speak, hoping that she wouldn't be heard. She spoke with great urgency and great passion,

"Please, Lord Melbourne, come back with me to the palace. We shall have dinner together. There is so much I wish to talk to you about."

Lord Melbourne, taking a sharp intake of breath, looked about himself, as if checking if the coast was clear, and then leant in before speaking to the Queen as the sensible politician again. His voice was low and it caught Victoria's breath. What a beautiful sound – one she heard at night, but did not think she would hear in her waking hours again. What a beautiful sound making the most awful meaning.

"I'm afraid you must excuse me, Ma'am, but it is already late and I have matters to attend to."

Victoria could have screamed! How could he hold her hand like that, and then immediately act like nothing had happened? Had he no mercy? No kindness? Had he learnt nothing?

"It is hardly past eight o'clock!" she implored, "And what matters could be more pressing? We needn't have anything large prepared for us, just something small. I have not yet eaten, and I would very much like your company tonight." She resisted the urge to beg. She knew it would not be dignified, though she wished to get on her knees and plead with him. William knew that it would not be wise for him to get in the carriage with the Queen and go with her back to the palace: people would see and what they saw would lead them to talk and that talk would catch on the wind and spit back in their faces. Hot ash and smoke. He still nursed the burns of scandal. The exposed scalds were sensitive, and wary of being burnt again. He did not wish Victoria's skin – ivory, soft – to receive the scorches. "Lord Melbourne… now that we have… we have shared something, an understanding… touches… I cannot go back to the way things used to be. It would be like losing someone I love all over again."

He wanted to tell her to lower her voice. What she said was suicide. But the most beautiful suicide he had ever dreamt of. He, too, treasured the affinity they now shared. He still felt her hands on his face, wiping away his tears, her breath on his skin, the sweet smell of her. And, in his mind, clear above all the sense screaming at him to stop this, he could hear Emma: _a happy epilogue, William_. What an epilogue it could read. And so, his voice remained quiet and gentle, and his hand burned to clasp hers again. His voice almost faltered under unshed tears, the weight of a million pressures all ignored in the hold of those crystal blue eyes.

"If you wish for me to come with you, Ma'am, I cannot refuse."

Robert Peel returned from the theatre when the sun had gone down. He had taken to the club with a few Tory gentlemen (by 'taken' he meant 'persuaded to go') but had left earlier than them, not wishing Julia to worry about him. The carriage ride back to his residence was undisturbed, the air quiet save the chirping of crickets and the soft cooing of a bird in a tree, and the sky a deep purple, settling into the twilight, reeling from the loss of the sun, mottled with starlight, tracing constellations through the clouds. He made it back inside with little fuss and a lot of calm. That was, until he was inside.

"So," cried Lady Peel, rushing to her husband as if he had the most riveting news that any ear could ever hear, pouncing on him before he could even rid himself of his overcoat. Robert Peel expected her to be asleep at this time. "Was it Lord Melbourne? Has she spoken to him?" Sir Robert Peel took a few more seconds to collect himself, allowing his brain to keep up with his hears, before he simply sighed.

"She said he was welcome but, whether she had seen him already, she would not say." Suddenly, and much to Robert Peel's surprise, Lady Peel released a squealing laugh, giddy – much like an excited schoolgirl – backing away from her husband, half-dreamy, clapping her hand across her mouth. "What? Julia, whatever's the matter?"

"Don't you understand, Robert?" she cried, a silly grin spread across her face that frightened her husband. She could hardly talk for the giggles that continued to rack her. "When a woman doesn't tell you something, it means she has done something you wouldn't like!"

Robert Peel's heart sank in his chest. It would not come to that, he thought.

"What do you mean?" he pressed.

"That means, Sir Robert, that not only has the Queen met with Lord Melbourne but that the exchange between them was… well, by her terms, satisfactory, by yours, far from it!"

What did she mean? Sir Robert's mind began to whirr, like millwheels, old millwheels that hadn't been used in far too long and scratched and squealed.

"How has he been: Lord Melbourne? Have you seen him?" Julia asked, her excitement getting the better of her. The difference between attitudes of man and wife was almost comical. Sir Robert was practically grey with gloom.

"Yes. At the theatre." Her eyes were so wide. It was troubling.

"And how did he seem?"

Robert Peel was rooted to the spot by what his wife was saying. He had not thought of it when he had seen Lord Melbourne that day, walking through the foyer of the theatre, a few steps behind the Queen, but now – whilst being interrogated by Julia Peel – he realised something horrible. Lord Melbourne, firstly, was following the Queen. After the incident at the funeral, such a situation was strange and frightening. Secondly, Lord Melbourne looked so peaceful, so amiable, filled with such potent happiness that it almost radiated off him. For a man that was so often seen with a stern expression, or one of sarcastic humour, such happiness should have struck Sir Robert with confusion, but it did not. He had hardly noticed it. What a fool he was! Lord Melbourne's eyes were practically flashing, green and gold, creased in the corners. His walk was fast. Whatever had happened? Only one thing. His pursuit of the Queen's step in the foyer of the theatre only meant one thing: there was something for Robert Peel to worry about.

"He seemed quite… happy."

Julia laughed once again, louder this time. Her cheeks were a pretty pink, and her eyes were full and shining.

"Oh, I am so glad! Do you think they are quite in love?"

"Julia!" Sir Robert snapped, as if her words had wounded him.

"What?"

"He was a Whig Prime Minister! She is the Queen! And not only the Queen, but a newly widowed Queen! She is in her second stage of mourning! It has only been three months!"

"One must publicly mourn on the passing of one's love, yes, but everyone knows that the Queen did not _love_ Prince Albert. Respected him, perhaps. Liked him, even. But, loved? What need is there to mourn a husband that was never a husband? If she conducts herself carefully, not publicly, not yet, then-"

"It is not proper!"

"Do you really think she's proper? If you do, as the Prime Minister, you have a lot to learn! She took a name which does not exist, she has stood firm ground again you time and time again, she invents fashions and orders battalions! If she is in love with Lord Melbourne, she will not deny herself that. Not after all she has suffered. And neither will he, I should hope. They deserve this! You are the only one who is afraid!"

"The constitution will face ruin!" Sir Robert cried, face red, throwing his hands up, a plea to the Gods, defeat.

"Don't be so wicked, Robert!" Julia scolded, her gaze as hard as the cutting edge of her voice. Sir Robert fell silence, scorched. And then, and only then, did Lady Peel soften. "Do you remember when you first courted me? I do not believe our match was entirely popular. But you persisted. Because we were in love."

"You are not the Queen!" he replied, his anger still simmering.

"I beg your pardon?" she gasped, mock-offended. It made Robert Peel laugh, though he was not at all in a laughing mood. "We were in love, weren't we?" Sir Robert did not reply. But his eyes spoke. Yes, I believe we were. "I ask you, Robert, as a wife to her husband, if it ever comes to you to make a decision regarding the couple, please, remember what we have, what we had."

Lady Peel's dark eyes caught the light, and melted him. It seemed like only minutes ago, an hour at most, that those same eyes gazed at him in the gardens of Drayton Manor – though, he knew, it was twenty-two years ago, now. It had rained that day, in the garden, but they did not heed it. He remembered it exactly, minutely, every little cold raindrop on his face, making crystals in her hair. She was wearing white that day and it made her almost gleam, like something angelic, and she had left her shawl in the library, across the back of the armchair. Her arms were pimpling in the cold, matching her red cheeks and purple lips. He remembered wanting to hold he arms and warm them up. She did not fear catching a chill, for she had words of love to tell him, gazes to share with him, and they must do it all away from his father.

The gardens were bright green, more vivid against the mottled grey of churning clouds in the sky, and there were great bushes spreading back, back until they met the grey. Hardly a flower, hardly a tree, just grass and foliage, gleaming and catching raindrops. Drayton Manor's brick expanse seemed inappropriate amongst the green – a jarring stab of red, orange, in the landscape. But what a backdrop it made for her: her, his Julia, uttering her affections, gazing at him, and melting him.

How would he have felt, if his father had not shown them mercy?

He thought that, perhaps, William saw that same gaze – blue, not dark – but filled with the purest and gentlest love imaginable, and he wondered whether he, too, melted under the gaze.

How would they feel, if he did not show them mercy?

 _It could come to that,_ Sir Robert thought. _And then what would he do?_

The carriage came to a stop in the pool of light, soft and yellow, pouring sweet like honey from the many windows of Buckingham Palace. The carriage had rolled along past St James' Park in almost complete darkness and, so, when they were allowed a little light, the pair studied the other's face, prettier in the soft light, softer. The lines which so often looked brooding and harsh on Lord M's face were smoothed down, as if by the tides of the sea pulled upon by the moon, and the honey light made the gold in his eyes spark and gleam, turning molten and calling upon her. When looking at her, he noticed how her cheeks burned – not pink, like they used to, but bronze. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, he thought, but it made her look ethereal, powerful, like some deity or bust of an Egyptian Queen, burning with the light of her reign: a thousand suns and the moonlight in their wake. It was beauty, he thought.

Victoria exited the carriage first, and Lord Melbourne followed. He almost laughed: it was unheard of for them to exit a carriage in that order. Many, many times he had stood outside a carriage as the door clicked, felt his pulse skip in anticipation of her arrival, and witness it, feeling every time that he was witnessing something truly historical, and thanking God that he had been allowed to witness it. A young Queen, with her reign stretching ahead of her into a glorious sunlight, a million decisions and a million cries of 'God Save the Queen' and a million stars to light her and a million stars on her crown: and he was the one to guide her from the carriage. He was the one to take her hand, lead her into the eyes of the crowds, and hear their cheers for her, and join in them, silently.

But now, she watched him as he climbed from the carriage. And she thought of him, now. She thought of the stars, millions of them, that lay behind him.

Victoria and William walked through the palace in silence. The servants had grown used to the dormant evenings of the Queen's grief, and had developed a routine of early nights, leaving the halls and corridors and rooms of the palace, that would once have been jostling and stifling, utterly empty. It was almost strange, a little surreal, to have the palace rooms - decked out in the finest cloths and patterns and artistry simply for the amusement of guests - void of all guests, or even servants. It was a ritual for no one. A display for display's sake. An unheard cry. The rooms displayed their lacklustre splendour, deflating in the realisation that only two persons were there to see, and the two persons were too absorbed within themselves to pay attention to the cloths or patterns or artistry. The artistry, Melbourne thought, was merely a backdrop to her.

They enjoyed the silence. Victoria leading the way, her feet light as air on the floor, her skirts ruffling like a slight breeze across a petal, sweeping at her ankles and making beautiful fabric ruffles like the lapping of the sea; William following behind, keeping his footfall as light as he could, as not to disturb hers, and watching the fabric wafting at her feet, her braids brushing at her neck, her hands, delicate and pale. Victoria caught a glance of William in the mirrors on the wall, and saw that he was looking at her, and she blushed. He looked so handsome. The silence suited them perfectly.

In the empty silence of the palace, they felt bound, in a nutshell, and Victoria was the Queen of infinite space; Melbourne, her companion.

Victoria kept her word that they would not have anything grand, for she asked a slightly sleepy Lehzen (night-capped and lamp-wielding like a character from a children's fairy tale) for something small and sweet for her to eat. Lord Melbourne stayed out of Lehzen's sight, upon Victoria's instructions. She did not wish to explain to her governess why she had a man at the palace at this time of night. Lehzen brought biscuits, and they were perfect.

The pair sat in the sitting room where they often met, but Melbourne found that it was a very different place in the dark. There was something undeniably intimate about it (though that could have simply been a result of the intimacy of his company). A room that, in the daylight, seemed grand and open and airy, became close and quiet and private simply with the addition of moonlight and candles. He could not see the corners of the rooms for they were cloaked in shadows, the windows reflected the interior of the room, rather than offering a view of the outside. Only the moon broke the reflection, a pearly sphere, like a silver fruit hanging from a tree that one could simply reach for, pick down, suck the juice from and throw away the rinds. It would taste clearer than water, fresher than rain and cucumber.

Victoria was clearly hungry, for she ate most of the biscuits, talking to him absent-mindedly of the opera that neither had paid particular attention to. Victoria could still feel his hand holding hers. They fell back into silence as Victoria took the last bite of her biscuit and swallowed, looking back into Melbourne's eyes. Every time she did, she felt like she was falling in love with him all over again.

"Thank you for sitting beside me at the opera tonight, Lord M," she uttered, keeping her voice low, just in case a stray servant might overhear. They must still be careful, she understood that. If she did not, she would have loudly declared her love quarter of an hour ago.

"Thank you, Ma'am, for inviting me to sit beside you," Lord M replied, turning a biscuit over in his fingers, taking a nibble of it, not hungry at all but feeling the need to be polite. He was too distracted to be hungry. His stomach was turning. He could still feel her hand resting within his own.

"I believe," began Victoria, hesitantly, not knowing how to phrase the next passage of their book, but knowing that it must be written, or she would go mad, "that, after that day when it rained, something has changed between us. Don't you agree, Lord M?" William was not afraid of the Queen suggesting such a thing, so suddenly, for he knew that she spoke the truth. They had seen the innermost part of each other, and it had led to them sharing something sacred.

"I do, Ma'am." His voice was barely a whisper, barely there, but it made echoes in Victoria's mind.

"I cannot go on pretending, Lord M."

"No, Ma'am."

"You understand what I am trying to say?" she asked, afraid to say it for herself, scouring his eyes for something comforting, something to soothe her nerves which were beginning to shred to tatters. It was so silly – to be so frayed, when she was only speaking to a friend. _More than that now_ , she thought. Lord Melbourne laughed,

"I hope so, Ma'am. It would be awkward to misinterpret such a thing," he smiled. What a smile! What a gaze! Victoria thought she would burst. She thought she must be glowing. She laughed with him,

"Yes, I suppose it would."

"Just for the sake of clarity, Ma'am, will you permit me to be more frank?" he asked, finding courage, finding fire, again. It burned. Oh, how it burned. He felt the fire, and he was no longer afraid of it. Victoria could not speak, her throat was dry and her lungs collapsed, so she gave him a breathless nod. The nod was hardly perceptible, but Melbourne could not have missed it. When he spoke, he spoke with all the truth and clarity within him. "I love you."

There was no fanfare. No choir of angels. No running into his arms. No heavenly sunlight. But that did not matter. He was enough. His words were enough. Knowing that he loved her, that he cared for her, that he thought her beautiful, that he thought of her often, missed her when she wasn't there, enjoyed her company, felt pain at her pain, felt happiness at her happiness, felt all the things she felt for him, was the most perfect thing.

"I love you, too."

Melbourne gave a great sigh – relief? Love? The weight of the world rising from him or the weight of heaven falling upon him? He began to laugh, again, with the folly of it all. The once Prime Minister confessing his love to the Queen, and her returning the affection. It was ridiculous and it was glorious all at once. He was almost giddy on the sensation of it. Victoria laughed with him, a silvery laugh that twinkled like silver bells and rose from her like birdsong or the swell of a symphony, better than Mozart.

A hand found her braid, and her laugh turned to air, and face falling into a sigh. Or was it a gasp? As his fingers swept down her hair, pulling at it ever so gently, the gasp or sigh was drawn out of her, slowly, releasing into the still air, almost noiseless but not quite. He heard it. He turned his head slightly to the side, as if studying her, as if trying to take every part of her in and lodge it into his memory so he could hold it there forever, as if trying to appreciate her for all she was worth. His eyes brushed across her like a skilled painter brushes his paint across a canvas: the pink paint on her cheeks. He looked fascinated by her, but the glint of tears in his eyes told her that this was so much more than fascination.

"You mean the world to me, Victoria." His hand stopped at her neck, and stroked along her skin, setting fire to her. She shuddered. There was no urgency in the way he spoke, which was different, he spoke as if time meant nothing to them. His words meandered. It was a beautiful languidness. His voice dissolved in the air. His words drummed softly against her ribcage.

The hand on her neck became a hand on her jaw, sculpting around her ear, and drawing her in. Or was she falling? Falling in. Or being caught up? She could not be sure. Not be sure of anything. Was she moving or was the world moving around her? All she could be sure of was the scent of him, the touch of him, the sound of his mind and his heart which tolled like a bell, calling her to arms for a war she did not know how to fight, and then his lips, which met hers, and kissed. Whether he kissed first, or she did, neither were sure, but they kissed. A kiss. All they had desired. A meeting of the affinity. Meshed in the candlelight, bound together in the nutshell, and drowsy with desire, they gave and received. Offering every part of themselves – all the grief and all the years, all the desire, all the love, the companionship, the laughter and the tears – all of it. Her lips tasted sugary – was that from the biscuits she had eaten? Or were they always so sweet? Lord Melbourne's hand on her jaw trembled, and his other hand reached around her back, grasping at her waist, holding her captive. The gasp she gave at the contact, so intimate, drew breath from Melbourne's mouth. He was breathless. Heartless, for his heart lay in her bosom. Victoria's hand met with Melbourne's lapel, his chest, pulsing with a heartbeat and a shuddering breath, and now reeling from her contact, hot. She leant closer to him, leaning into his lips, desperately. Seeking more contact. Seeking more. More.

It was William who broke off, laughing. Victoria despaired at the loss of him. She felt like an empty shell, tossing and turning and churning on the tides, and was about to protest, heeding the twisting at the base of her stomach, until she saw his laughter and she joined with him in it.

"You make me so happy, William," she smiled, tears pricking her eyes, her heart full and aching in her chest. It was all he had desired – her happiness – and so those words were gospel to him. She made him happy, too. Happier than anyone. "I would very much like to visit Brocket Hall again. It still feels so stifling in the palace."

"I would be more than happy to receive you, Ma'am." The word _'_ _Ma'am'_ felt alien on his tongue since he had uttered _'_ _Victoria'_ , and felt Victoria's lips.

"I could bring the children. I do not think that London is a good place for them. You spent your childhood at Brocket Hall, didn't you? I believe this is much healthier," she spoke quickly, excitedly, still dizzy from their kiss. Her lips tingled.

"I did, Ma'am. The countryside is such a good place for children. They will like Brocket, and I will be delighted to receive them."

"I must come soon. I must be with you." Her urgency humoured William, but he did not give in to her. He had a better plan. Delayed gratification, of sorts.

"It is so cold at Brocket this time of year. Perhaps, Ma'am, when the springtime comes around, and it is a little warmer, I will have the pleasure of receiving you and your children."

"But that is such a long time!"

"It is a few months, Ma'am, yes. But patience is a virtue. And you are sure to be rewarded for it. Brocket is so beautiful in the spring. We can take a ride in the grounds together. Take in the lake. It will be too cold to do that now!"

"I suppose you are right, though it grieves me, Lord M!"

Lord M chuckled. She had that power over him: to make him laugh. Not many did, or ever had, to truly make him laugh. But Victoria could. Since their first meeting, her comment about – what was it? – pumpkins? It had brought a light into him that he had become stranger to. That light had never left him. Even in the deepest pits of his despair, he harboured that light. Clearer than water, fresher than rain and cucumber.

"I will look forward to it, Ma'am," he said. He was telling the truth. Less than the truth. He would wait for it, and the waiting would grieve him as much as it would her. He would wait to feel her lips again. He would wait.

The remaining winter months harboured a warm and consistent correspondence between the two. Lord Melbourne flickered, like bird on branch, between Brocket and London, and visited the palace as often as he could. Lady Emma was one of the two who saw how Victoria's cheeks made rose whenever he entered a room, how her demeanour changed, how her grief became a little more bearable, how his jokes were the only ones she truly laughed at, how she dressed more finely when she knew he was coming for dinner; her mourning dress was paired with pearls, or little details, fringes of delicate colour. Lady Emma also noticed a change in William: he tried to make her laugh, and delighted when she did, he played cards with her, and he danced with her, he smiled more often and no longer seemed afraid. The other to notice these details was Sir Robert Peel - who did not receive them with Lady Emma's smirks but, instead, with hot flushes and snuff-taking.

They wrote letters to each other when he was not in London. She wrote to him of her children, and how she felt she was growing closer to them. He wrote to her of his health, Brocket's rooks, and shaded comments that Victoria was sure were tokens of love. She was not imagining them, she was sure of it.

They both resisted talking of the promised visit until the birds began to chirp their songs more loudly, more vividly, singing to the warmer sun, thanking it for the flowers and berries it was harbouring. The greens became more vivid and the soft blush pinks of the flowers brushed up against the sunny daffodils and the carpets of bluebells: almost fluorescently purple. Then, when that sun was gracing the windows of Brocket Hall, making a mirror of the lake which glinted with silver like flecks of precious metal in a rock, sparking, captivating, Lord Melbourne wrote a letter to the Queen – asking her if she would do him the pleasure of meeting with him at Brocket Hall.

"Brocket, Ma'am?" Harriet Sutherland asked. Lady Portman would have asked the question, if she were not stifling an amused giggle. How incorrigible these lovers had become! She had scarcely seen William for months as he was always busy with the Queen! And how it pleased her immensely!

"Yes. I would be grateful if I could take your carriage, Harriet."

"Of course, Ma'am."

"And you two can accompany me, if you wish. I do not wish for Lehzen and Mama to lecture me: they can stay here. I will be taking the children, too."

"Of course, Ma'am. I shall make the preparations."

Harriet Sutherland made the preparations very efficiently, Victoria thought, careering down the country roads, staring dreamily out of the window at the throngs of trees and bright blue sky and rows of daffodils and birds flying free, soaring and diving. Harriet sat in front of the Queen, still a little confused as to the reason behind this sudden trip. Emma Portman sat next to Harriet, looking at the Queen, and hiding her amusement. She was looking forward to seeing William: not simply because she was his friend, but because she enjoyed seeing him so lovesick. Especially after so long. He deserved this. A happy epilogue. Young Victoria sat beside her mother, kicking her legs, and thinking of how fast the world moved outside the window, and wondering where she was going. Young Edward was in Harriet's arms.

They were all Brocket Hall bound.

The carriage arrived at Brocket Hall, and a million untouched memories came flooding back to Victoria. Some painful, some peaceful, and she breathed all of them in, felt them, and exhaled them. The springtime was warm. She was happy. Upon exiting the carriage, she was met immediately by William, standing outside his home, wearing the most beautiful green jacket that Victoria remembered he had worn that autumn's day. It brought out his eyes. William, perhaps in an attempt to be coy or teasing, welcomed both Lady Emma and Lady Harriet before even heeding her. He had offered her a playful glance and a little smirk, confirming to her that he was indeed trying to bait her.

Once he had offered his welcome to the ladies, Victoria began to step forward. It was her turn. However, before she could reach him, her child – little Vicky – had scurried from the carriage and run forward to greet this man. She had never met Lord Melbourne before, and Victoria knew that she was a very shy girl. Her behaviour was puzzling, but it made Victoria laugh. She stood back, and allowed her daughter to make her introductions first.

William squatted down, so he could be on the same level as the little Princess. He was excellent with children. He should have been a father to many children. It would have suited him. Victoria watched on, a smile almost cracking her face. The little girl approached him, suddenly afraid of her own actions, realising that this man was a stranger. She grew bashful, but William held his hand out to her and, softly, not patronisingly, said,

"I don't believe we've met. My name's William." He shook her hand, and the young Vicky giggled because his hands were so big. "Where are my manners?" William gasped. "You are a Princess! And, therefore, I should address you as Your Royal Highness!" And he did a mock-bow to her. She laughed more, running to Lady Emma, who was beckoning her. William smiled as he watched the young Princess bundle away and take Emma's hand.

Victoria watched it all, standing well back. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide. It happened in a moment. A single moment. No longer than any other moment in her life leading up to that point, no shorter either. Just a moment for her to realise.

She wanted to marry him.

Nothing more.

She wanted to be his wife.


	10. Forest

Victoria, simply Victoria, sat in the starlight.

If she were at the palace, she would have been ushered inside by now, cloistered by maids and manservants as if the stars would burn her skin or the night would freeze her blood. She would be confined to her room, and forced to watch the stars through the window. There light would be mottled away. They gleam dimmed. But this was Brocket Hall. At Brocket Hall, she was free. And here, only here, she could be a woman.

And so, she sat out in the night, having watched the sun fall from grace and go down blazing, making fire where the yellow sky met the black horizon, and she counted the stars. One, two, three. All individual, all blinking and twinkling at different times, in slightly different hues: some white and clear, some blue and cold, some warmer, almost yellow. Some were great distances from the others, others were so close that they almost brushed. But every one of them was observed, and noted, and smiled upon by the Queen of England, now smaller and more real than she had ever been. The stars would not recognise her. Gone was her throne, to make her taller. She did not wear a crown, nor try to mimic their gleams with her own diamonds and pearls. She was not dressed in fripperies, not in mourning black either, but in simple white. She had not even taken a shawl with her, for the springtime evenings were balmy and pleasant (but she knew that Mama would have insisted she take a shawl no matter the weather).

Her little rebellion.

And, in the backdrop of her solitude, were the sounds of her ladies, her children, and her dearest Lord M.

She could hear Lady Emma make a joke (about a dreary Whig or a horrendous Tory or some mutual friend they all hated or some other unimportant quibble that Victoria had always believed she was too young to understand and someday would, but never had done) and then her laugh – clear and loud – dissolving like the tolling of some great bell into the air. She had a laugh like a finely crafted instrument, played boldly, making proud music. Some Viennese orchestra. A castrato's herald. It was an attractive sound, a handsome sound, a sound that had brought Victoria joy many times and brought it to her again now in the form of a warmth in the pit of her stomach and a voice in her head telling her she belonged. She had not felt belonging like this in years. She could hear Harriet Sutherland's laugh too, a skittish laugh, pretty and airy, tapered for modesty, but the façade was failing. She could hear Lord Melbourne's laugh too, very, very, clearly. A sound as familiar as her own; as dear to her as her own breath.

She felt, in that moment, that she could be living in a time when Albert was still with her. The grief, her pain, was soothed over with a balm of peace. She felt the same peace that she had occasionally felt with him, in one of the times that she wished to remember him by. When they were friends, not lovers. When they were companions, and they would laugh and play and live harmoniously without the pressure of husband and wife pushing upon them. Simple and clean and preferable. She could hear his laugh among them. A rare sound, but a good one. It sounded like Germany, the palaces and the streets of Austria, the clink of glasses and chandeliers, all the things she had never lived, but missed. And he was amongst the missed.

"Do you miss him?"

A voice brought her cascading into the present, falling back to earth, looking back up at the stars. She turned, briefly, and saw the owner of such a voice – Lord M – approaching her carefully, gently, his form scattered in starlight. _How did he know?_ She wondered. But she answered her own question, inwardly: of course, he knew. He knows.

Lord Melbourne moved to sit beside his Queen, out in the gardens of Brocket Hall, looking at the silver water where the moon's reflection lay, rippling and breaking. Victoria did not look at him as she replied. She could not bring herself to.

"Yes."

It did not upset him. It did not hurt him in the slightest. For he missed Caroline too. It was perfectly natural and, in fact, he was glad of it. It meant she felt. She had blood running through her and a heart in her breast. It was strange, but perhaps not, that you can miss someone so dearly once they have gone, but never appreciate them in life. He loved Caroline, initially, of course. He had fallen in love with her, rapturously, captured by that spirit of hers, that quick wit, those fast eyes, but fell out of that love. Strain pulled him out of it, the pressure of her, the pressure of his position. He was torn away. Part of him was left behind. A million things had dragged them apart until he convinced himself that he did not care for her. But now she breaks his heart. Even though his heart belongs to Victoria, Caroline still holds a little bit of it. The bit that didn't tear away. And he knew it would be the same for Victoria. She could give him her heart, but Albert would still hold a little bit of it. Melbourne did not believe in heaven, but the thought humoured him that, perhaps, they were both looking down on them, in shock, maybe, or maybe not. Maybe they were happy for them. Maybe angry. Maybe upset. It was lucky that William did not believe in heaven.

"Do you miss Caroline?" Victoria asked, as if reading his mind. William fought back his gasp, a visceral reaction to having her mind so closely tuned into his own. His gasp became a laugh, a laugh hardly more than breath, with puffed into a cloud before his face, dissipating into the night and shrouding the stars. Victoria turned to him, her eyes glossy and her mouth a soft line, wanting to reach out and hold his hand. She did not, however. She waited for his reply.

"Yes."

Victoria smiled meekly before finally reaching her hand out and closing it over his. No Mozart this time. But his touch. _He is a man of great feeling._ William's hand felt tense when her fingers first lay over it, but the muscles softened almost instantly. _Peace, my love,_ Victoria thought, _peace._ William released a sigh, hearing the call of her heart, calling him to be at peace, and his eyes closed. He felt the moonlight. Different to the sunlight. Consuming him. In the blackness of his eyelids, he still felt the silver light. And then he felt a kiss on his cheekbone, where his skull was closest to the surface, and it sent tingles across his cheek, a warmth into his face. He did not open his eyes, but let his mouth curl into a smile, to let her know that she was loved. She saw it, and knew, and leant into his chest, closing her own eyes, and breathing him in.

Emma and Harriet noticed, of course, and, in hushed voices, careful not to be overheard, they spoke of what they saw.

"The Queen is quite smitten. And not long ago she was mourning over the late Prince," Harriet whispered.

"He is helping her to heal. I am glad," Emma replied, tilting her head too one side, and watching the two lovers like cupid whose arrows had sparked the match in the first place.

"Do you think she will marry him?" Harriet asked, almost scandalised, but with not a negative feeling in her body.

"I hope so. They deserve it. A happy epilogue."

Young Vicky had grown bored of the adult conversation, not understanding it at all, and was tugging gently at Lady Emma's skirt, protesting that she was tired, and letting out profuse yawns, rubbing her little blue eyes. Emma smiled at the young girl, and led her to her bedroom, whilst Harriet brought Edward to the cot. Brocket Hall was getting quiet and still. The night was becoming darker.

When William finally felt Victoria's breath become soft and slow, he roused, waking her a little from a state of half-dream, and they stood up together, neither aware of how much time had passed or what the time was, but they walked back inside together, William leading her on his arm. He led her upstairs and to the hall, down which stood the door to her room. He wished her a good night and, emboldened by being in his own residence, and by the darkness of the Hall, and by the silence, he leant across to the woman holding his arm and kissed her forehead. She was sleepy, but his kissed blazed through her mind. And with that, he left her, giddy with tiredness and love, and he went to his own room. She was on his mind.

And she walked down the hall and into her room. It was perfumed. It smelled sweet and clean. A gentle scent that smelled so definitely of home. Not the oils of Buckingham Palace or Kensington's violets – the stench of death – but some resemblance of a home she had never lived in but her humanity was rooted to interpret the subtle notes as the epitome of home. The smell of belonging: of knowing where you are and being fixed within it, like a gem in the foil. The room was a pretty one, she had stayed there before and had insisted upon it. The view from the window was an exquisite one; nothing but green. Not the London roofs she could see from Buckingham, but endless stretches of green meeting the water and the forest beyond. The room was perfect, with red walls and a bed that yielded to her body, cocooning her. But it seemed more delightful now than it ever had done before. Had he prepared it differently? Prepared it with such care, such gentility, so it would be utterly perfect for her? Was it just the lowlight? Was it the meaning, now, that she had seen the innermost part of him, and shared herself with him? Now that she had loved him?

She dressed herself into her nightgown, without a maid to take out her hair or a maid to press her nightclothes or rub oils into her hair. She climbed into the sheets and allowed them to smother her, near suffocating her, rubbing at her cheeks – still red – and clamouring at her toes. She sighed. It was dark and almost silent, save the tapping of a branch on the window and the rustling of nocturnal animals, stirring under the moonlight to seek out their partners. She could feel his heartbeat in the floorboards. His life, lived in full in this house, playing out in her imagination. All the years. Every moment, every beat that formed him, made him the Lord M she knew and adored. She could feel his breath in the draft. He sought her out, and lingered with her through the night.

The sun broke, the nocturnal animals returned to their dreams, the birds called out in full and harmonious song. It was spring. Brocket was alive.

Victoria came downstairs in red. A bright colour. Not black, as would be expected of her. But red. Red like a militiaman. Like the Duke of Wellington himself. Red like a carnation. Incarnadine, she brazened. The multitudinous seas behind her. She turned her back on them. With gold trim, glinting and unashamed, she glistered. She stood happily in the dining room, as if presenting herself to her ladies and her Lord, awaiting their reaction.

"You are wearing your riding habit, Ma'am," Lord Melbourne said rather dimly, looking up at her from over his breakfast. Lady Emma almost guffawed. The term _'_ _Ma'am'_ seemed so alien on the man's lips now, but he insisted upon using it, thinking that people were fooled. No one was fooled. Victoria deflated a little at the response, but replied in as perky a tune she could muster, puffing her chest out and lifting her chin.

"You said we would go out riding together, Lord M," Victoria replied, refraining from calling him by his Christian name. His private name. William. "I would like to take you up on your offer. This morning, if that would suit you." Lady Emma and Lady Harriet saw the man's blush, creeping unwanted on to his face, amused by her lack of tact. He hoped she would never learn to be tactful. He'd had enough of tact. He'd lived his life in the company of tactful people. Tact be damned.

"Of course, Ma'am. I shall have the horses prepared."

Before the strike of twelve, they crossed the bridge over the Broadwater on horseback. Two brown horses, strong and healthy, muscular, and obedient. As good a horse as Victoria could wish for. She trotted alongside Lord Melbourne, who never rode quite as fast as Victoria would wish to, but she supposed that was consequence of their difference in years. And, so, she slowed herself, and talked to him of the grounds. She did not lead the conversation, unusually, as she was perfectly content in listening to him. He was positively emphatic. His expression was bright, and he seemed to be able to talk endlessly of the history in the grounds, his family history. He had opened up, prompted by the springtime, and she watched him bloom.

They reached the edge of the forest, where the springtime sunlight at first became mottled and then the throng of trees became so dense that the light was nearly blotted out altogether. They stopped their horses at the edge of it, listening on the cusp of the forest's whisperings, and Victoria peered in between the willowy trunks, some thinner and some girthy, some silver and some deep and dark and rough. Patches of moss. Rocks. Stones that had laid there for generations. Patches of grass and carpets of bluebells. The leaves, some catching the light, some almost translucent in the light's vision, making the wall of foliage impenetrable. Such uncertainty exciting the young Queen.

"How far does the forest go?" she asked, turning to her Lord M, who was beginning to turn his horse round, to creep back to the Hall. He laughed, at himself,

"I used to ask myself that. I used to ride out into the forest as a young man, to try and find what was on the other side. I never quite found it," he explained, reminiscing on a younger self that still lay somewhere within him. The same part of him that had fallen so hopelessly and infuriatingly in love.

Victoria's mouth curled into a smirk and, taking a tighter hold of her horse's reins, she jeered,

"Why don't we try again?"

And off she shot. Like a bullet from a barrel. A cork from a bottle. She turned to wind in Lord Melbourne's face, then the thundering of hooves into the trees. It kicked up leaves which made whirlwinds. Melbourne watched her go, half-laughing, a bit shell-shocked, before taking his own reins, kicking the flank of his horse, and following her, at a roaring pace. Victoria felt the wind beat her face until it went numb, pulling her hair free from its style, cracking her lips and drying out her beaming smile. She wanted to scream into the wind, and let her voice be carried away by the air, whipped from her and taken to some far, far off place. She wanted to let go of the reins, lean back, and be carried to infinity on the back of this horse. She could hear hooves behind her, and she whipped her head back momentarily to spot him, following her, galloping between the trees. They were getting lost in the forest. Together. The sound of the hooves made them deaf, and their own breath heaved with the chase.

Victoria stopped in a clearing, almost falling from her horse in the sudden halt, and William came to a stop beside her. There was an ever-changing light falling in the clearing, morphing like the crests of waves rippling on the top of a lake, sparking in pearlescent light before falling into shadow with the light forming beside it, then a few metres away, then there, again. It was still, and they did not know where they were. They knew they were far away, that was what mattered. No one would find them here.

William climbed from his horse, tethered it, then helped Victoria from her horse, and she tethered it. Then, they walked, careful not to walk too far, but they were distracted and therefore the possibility of getting lost was likely.

She could hear their footsteps on the ground: a real sound. Her foot and then his; her foot then his; hers then his. On the ground, not hollow and echoing like the marble floors of the palace, but the earth and the ground and the soil and leaves, and the soft trudge of their footfall, as real as her heartbeat, and beating in tandem.

"You look beautiful," William said, as a fractal of light, warm and soft like honey, fell onto her face, illuminating her. Her hair was unkempt and her face clear. Happy. She looked radiant. He meant what he said. He meant more than he said. Victoria blushed, unsure of how to respond to a statement so frank. A Queen was not taught to respond to frankness, for frankness was never a technique applied to the Queen's conversations. Should she thank him? Return the favour? Simply turn and kiss him, so he could never be so frank again? Before she could respond, he spoke again, though – this time – to no one in particular, "I do not know what you see in me."

William noticed that Victoria's footsteps had stopped suddenly. He turned, and saw an expression as cold as stone and stormy as thunder.

"Your humility would be charming if it were not so ridiculous!" she cried, crossing her arms over her chest. Her expression sweetened, her eyes growing wider, a smile creeping up on her. Oh, how beautiful he looked. Ruffled feathers. Green eyes. "You are the kindest man I have ever known, William! Why shouldn't I love you?" Her hand fell on to his chest. His breath shuddered without his bidding. A hitch. A gasp. Her touch still melted him. It was pathetic. Schoolboy. Virgin. Oh, the effect she had on him. She surprised him, still. "You are quite handsome too, if you don't mind me saying, Lord M." Flirty. Enrapturing. Engaging. Her eyes. Exposing him. Pupils. Teasing. And, then, her kiss. Perfection. Falling on his lips like the sunlight on the ground. Ever-changing. Light, barely brushing, hesitant. Warm, spreading a warmth through him, illuminating him. A gift. Something precious. Something only they would share. Something he would wrap up and keep sacred forever. Her laughter broke their kiss. A fit of giggles. Embarrassed. What folly it was! To steal kisses in the middle of the woods. After a dangerously fast ride. To confess desire and love in the company of the trees. To hope they wouldn't overhear. To hope their whispers wouldn't repeat their secrets.

And then her lips again, back again like the tide, stronger this time. A passionate wave. A moan on her lips which he took from her. A hand in his hair. On the back of his neck. Her waist. Her breath. Her back. Pushing closer to him, leaning into his kiss as if it could support her. Life blood. Leaning further. A fervent touch. Shaking hands. A sigh rising through him. Her hands pushing away his jacket, led by something she could not understand. Her fingers ghosting on his shirt. The air closer to him. Cold. The breaking of the wave. The sigh. The gasp. Pulling back. Stumbling backwards.

"Victoria!" he cried, pulling his jacket back on to his shoulder. Now parted from her, he realised quite how weak his legs had become. How unstable he had become at the knee. He was sure he was swaying.

"What is the matter? Do I not… do I not please you?" she panted, her voice shaking, disrupted by the rumbling of her heart, beating so hard and so fast that she feared her ribcage would break.

"No! No, that is not it at all. You… you please me… greatly, Victoria. You really do. But, I fear this is not the time or the place."

Victoria suddenly remembered herself, coming down from the high, and she was seized by a horrible dread, mortified, but afraid to show it. She simply nodded, pursing her lips, and replying,

"Oh, yes. Of course, of course. You are quite right."

William smiled at her, and eased her grief, immediately, immaculately. Victoria smiled back, the breath of a laugh passing through her, before she sighed, turning her head on one side, tears brimming in her eyes. Lord Melbourne could not have known for sure what passed through Victoria's head in that moment – though he knew it was a thought of love. For her face showed every pang of it.

What the Queen thought was pure and simple.

She wanted to marry him.

Nothing more.

She wanted to be his wife.

A few days later, in London town, Thomas Spring Rice, the Baron Monteagle of Brandon, harbouring a new shade of ruddy red in his cheeks from alcohol drinking since the date of his second marriage to Marianne Marshall – who everyone thought was quite lovely and, importantly for Thomas, quite rich – was sat in his armchair as always in the gentlemen's club that the Whigs had claimed. It was a fine establishment – less pristine and airy and crystalline than the Tory equivalent (which a few Whigs could tell the tale of having visited) – but full of darkened corners where books would be fluttered through and the acidic smell of old tobacco and alcohol. To Monteagle, this was home. And, on this day, home was getting a visitor who had not been seen there in a good while. Once a frequent visitor of those dark corners, a frequent flitterer of books, licker of thumbs and turner of pages, downer of port and more port and more until he was quite intoxicated and quite unlike the man that everyone expected to one day be Prime Minister, and quite unlike the man that was the Prime Minister eventually, as the stress made him drink to greater excess. He was not a drunkard, that was important to note. He was a charming fellow. A good man. But one with the vice of drinking away troubling emotions. Pain. Everyone knew he felt it. Worse than most.

A painful existence.

It was hard not to pity him and, yet, impossible not to respect him. His wit was sharp and his charisma beguiling. He had been Prime Minister for a reason.

And there he was. Frequenting the gentlemen's clubs like the young William Lamb used to, like the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne used to. Hardly changed, Thomas thought, those same hawkish eyes – radiantly green, enigmatic and handsome – roving the room. That same allure exuding from him, urbane. And his jacket was well made, his necktie well pressed, his hair well-kept and his shoes well-polished. He was keeping himself well, Thomas thought. _I wonder why_ , Monteagle thought, knowing the answer.

William saw his long-time political associate sat in a little patch of hazy light, in that same armchair, and felt his spirits quite lifted at the presence of a friend who he had not seen in a while. He sat down in front of the gentleman, and greeted him with warmth. He told him how delighted he was to see an old friend, asked after his new wife, asked him about politics and half-listened to the answers. Thomas, however, seemed distracted by his own thoughts and, the moment William's formalities had turned to silence, the Baron spoke,

"I have noticed that the Queen has not been in residence for the past… what, four days? And you, Melbourne, haven't been seen at your London residence in… it must be four days? What a coincidence. And all sources have told me that you've been at Brocket," Monteagle picked up a newspaper and languidly began to flick through it, tutting before sighing and exclaiming, "How interesting!" William would have been angry if it were anyone else but Thomas' intrusion was quite humorous. Old friends can get away with murder, sometimes.

"Are you spying on me, Thomas? Keeping tabs on me like some naughty schoolboy!" Melbourne chuckled, drawing his glass from the table and taking a sip.

"You and I both know, William, that you are the _naughtiest_ schoolboy in the Whig party. Or at least you were."

"I do not know what you mean, Baron!"

"And you clearly haven't changed! Receiving the widowed Queen at Brocket Hall! I mean, honestly!" William quickly shushed him, leaning in rapidly, almost spilling his port. "Calm down, Melbourne. It's almost common knowledge in the Whig party now. And we're not against you. In fact, we're in support of it. It gives our party a little boost. I'm talking cynically. People also quite _like_ you, William, for some reason, despite your political failings. And personal ones. It's the Tories who you'll have to convince!"

"Convince for what? The Queen and I are close friends!"

The Baron Monteagle of Brandon nodded a multitude of chins and professed,

"Oh, of course, of course."

There was a dense silence between the pair. The clock ticked. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Melbourne gulped down his port. It shook in his glass in his hand. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The silence coagulated. Tick. He was almost sweating. Tock. He let out an exasperated cry,

"Good God! Am I that obvious?"

"You haven't exactly been subtle about it, Melbourne! One moment you were cursing the day you'd ever entered politics and the next, out of the blue, you are quite happy to attend to the young and pretty Queen, and to help her most readily with the dispatches!"

"Lord, I am such a fool!" he sighed, bringing a hand to his forehead and shutting his eyes, closing the world off, feeling the dizzying effects of the port getting to his head.

"No!"

"I am! A damned fool. To act like a boy at my age!"

"I have known you for a long time, William. And I can truthfully say that I have never seen you as happy as you are in the Queen's company." William's heart swelled, though his head still remained buried. "It is a companionship that most men can only dream of. You know I am a cynical man and even I find it quite… touching. Look, if the possibility comes around, William… William, listen to me! If the opportunity comes around, please, don't let it go."

Don't let it go. Don't let it pass by. Victoria repeated it to herself like a mantra. Don't let it go.

"Sir Robert," Victoria choked, for her mouth was dry and her lips were drier. The Prime Minister was sat in one of Buckingham's fine chairs, bolt upright, a bit pale, and listening attentively, anxiously. "I have an important question I must ask you."

 _It will not come to that_. _It must not come to that._


	11. Marriage

Lord Melbourne was called to the palace at the utmost urgency.

A lad, young and pasty with red spots on his face, barely sixteen, delivered the message from the palace, breathless with the journey, his thin frame heaving beneath his red wool and finery. He had the look of a soldier, too young. Melbourne was sitting over a book, but no more. Fearing the worst, he made no delay, taking his horse and whipping through the London landscape, and he burst into the palace without shame, roving like a wild thing in pursuit of the Queen, aimless before being told where he would find her. _In the sitting room, my Lord._ The tone of voice told him what state he would find the Queen in. They did not speak frankly with him. It was as if they forgot to tell him that she was in a state of sorrow. Forgetting himself, he was not polite. He needed to find her. Discretion was meaningless.

The door between them could have been paper thin. He could feel her. And, with her, came pain. Great pain.

"Sir Robert has killed us!" Victoria cried the second she first lay eyes on her lover, who came almost silently through the door, despite the speed at which he did so. Delicate in all things. Melbourne himself was startled, nerves shredded and muscles tensed. Confused, he gawped at her. Concerned, his heart broke for her. She had been crying, that was obvious from the rings around her eyes, her mottled cheek, her hoarse throat. Her black garb suffocated her like a flame deprived of air.

"Whatever's happened? My dear, Victoria!" He wanted her to burn.

"We will never be happy! Never!" Her voice was rough, barely there, but so jarring that it could not be ignored. Oh, how she screeched. Oh, how she raged against fate. His hand took her arm in consolation, and his eyes scoured her, darting over every inch of her, desperate to find some visible sore he could heal. There was none. He took the poor girl and bound her into his chest, muttering,

"You've been crying, come here."

She fell into him, her cheek crushed into his clothing. It scratched against her skin, but the smell of him soothed any pain that may come. Soft. Rich. Deep. Like the smell of fireplaces long extinguished, or books unread and living on shelves. And the feeling of his arms bound tightly around her, holding her close and safe, embalmed her. And she cried. Closing her eyes tightly, letting her tears soak into the cloths that clothed him, choking back her rising sobs. She trembled in his arms, her heart beating against him. He heard it, felt it, and softly paced on,

"What has Sir Robert done?" he asked, taking his hand to her hair, and stroking it away from her face. The feel of his hand was comforting, and she closed her eyes and took a quiet moment to feel it, take it, and keep that memory sacred. A breath, and then she spoke,

"I asked him… I asked him whether a marriage… a marriage between… us… is possible," she wept. Melbourne stiffened, his gentle hold on her becoming tense. He pulled momentarily away from their embrace, looking her in the eye. Victoria's heart broke to see him. She had disappointed him. Upset him. Oh, she had been a fool. It wounded her to think she had caused him discomfort.

"Victoria." His voice was strained. He wanted to sound caring, but was failing, faltering under the weight of her words. His mind was aflame with Sir Robert's refusal. He heard it in a million languages – languages he did not know – and every syllable was agony. "You have asked Sir Robert for his permission for us to be married? And you did not think to tell me first?" he asked, not angry as such, but fuelled by another emotion. Fear? He was afraid, yes. Of the consequences. Of what this would hold for them. He was afraid that their happiness, they sweet little unmarried happiness, would be taken away from them. He feared it would be cruelly prised from their hands. He was afraid she had done something rash, and that they would both suffer for it. _Oh, what had Sir Robert said?_

"Well, no, I did not ask you first! And, for that, I am sorry, William! But I did not ask for his permission for us to be married! I asked for his advice! I asked if it would, in any circumstances, be possible!" she gushed, her tears turning to an unending voice, panicked and fast. So fast that Melbourne feared he could not understand her. Trying to keep up, Melbourne replied,

"I did not know you wished to marry me, Ma'am."

"Of course I do!"

"Well," William began, stifling an embarrassed laugh, "in that case, I fear you may be disappointed. It will certainly cause a scandal."

"You have said that you are not afraid of a scandal!" she wept. William sighed and calmly replied,

"At my age and in my position I am not. But you are young and the Queen and, more importantly, someone I deeply care about. I cannot bear to see a scandal hurt you!"

"Why should it be such a scandal?"

"It is not tradition!"

"Damn tradition!"

"Victoria!"

Victoria's cheeks were streaked with tears and, taking pity on his love, and responding to his own heart – which, like Victoria's, wished for a marriage – he asked her,

"And what did he say?"

"He said that we would have to wait at least a year and, even then, he could not guarantee Parliament's approval!"

Lord Melbourne laughed. A clear laugh. An awful laugh. Victoria's tears dried up. Her lip quivered and her mouth fell into a small and stubborn frown.

"Why do you laugh, Lord Melbourne? Do you wish for us to be unhappy forever?" she cried, her face turning scarlet. It looked sweet on her, William thought.

"I do not understand why you are so upset, Victoria! I thought he had said no! I was sure he would say no!" William cried, a great grin cracking his face, shining at her. It mocked her, first, as she did not see the goodness in this situation. But then, she admired his smile, and it made her grin, too. He had such a handsome smile. How she loved that smile. Taking the prompt of her smile, small and beautiful, a friend, he continued, brightly, "We need only wait a year! It is possible, my love."

"But a year, William!" Victoria repeated, laying desperate hands on his collar, turning her chin up. Her smile had been wiped clean again, and her expression was a serious one, a yearning one. The face of someone whose heart throbbed and tore at its strings to break free from the ribcage prison, to sing loudly and pulse in the chest of another. "I am so tired of wearing black, William. I want to wear white."

 _Oh, Ma'am,_ he thought, _what I would give to see you in white. And, yet, what a bitter impossibility. This world may not allow it, my love. You must be brave._

"Ma'am, do you remember when I told you of Elizabeth and Leicester?" he asked. His voice, sonorous as ever, gravelly, and struck at Victoria's very core. He drew all her breath with it, slowly from her lungs and through her open mouth. "Companions," he said, like a thought expressed aloud, that should have remained inside. He said it to himself as much as to her. "If you will have me, I would give myself to you as a companion. If we cannot marry, will that satisfy you?"

"You have always been Leicester to me. You have been my companion since I met you. And that has been an honour, William, and I adore it. But I would so much like to be your wife."

Melbourne sighed, his brow knotted, his head beginning to throb with the beginnings of a headache, a storm raging behind the skull, before a sudden calm, a clarity, like the breaking of the light through a cloud, and then he spoke slowly,

"I may have an idea."

"A secret marriage?" Sir Robert spluttered, a couple of days later, after looking through the dispatches with the Queen. He had noticed her fidgeting whilst signing the necessary papers, and her absent mind, busy with other things that he had hoped did not concern William Lamb. He was wrong.

"Yes, Sir Robert," Victoria replied. She sounded sure of herself. It was an act. "A ceremony performed by the Archbishop, perhaps, in the chapel." She saw that Sir Robert was unsure. Afraid. "But no one need be invited! Simply under the eyes of God, we say our vows. What harm could that do? I have an heir, and I am seen to mourn by all. I am only a married woman in the privacy of my home!"

"Forgive me, your Majesty, but the Queen does not have 'the privacy of her own home'!" Sir Robert replied. His complexion had turned dull as rubber, and he was chewing his lip in such a way to indicate that he was – in fact – composed entirely of rubber. He tugged at his fingers as if trying to stretch them.

"Oh, that is a foolish thing to say, Sir Robert!" Victoria implored, throwing her hands up in defeat, slumping. She began to pace. "I know very well that I have a private self and a public self! My public self can be seen to mourn, whilst my private self is allowed happiness!"

"But Lord Melbourne was a Whig minister! You know very well that the monarch must be impartial!"

"He has retired from politics! And I do not think that Lord Melbourne has ever wished to influence me in the slightest. This is not a political marriage-" She was about to protest that it was a marriage of love, but stopped herself. She was still the Queen. She need not embarrass herself. She straightened up, like a ruler. Queen. Empress. Goddess. Sir Robert was not dissuaded, however, perhaps because he did not look at the Queen's steely expression quite hard enough to notice how metallic it had become.

"Ma'am, Lord Melbourne may consider himself liable to certain… rights… or privileges, rather, as the monarch's husband. A title. A pension." Victoria snapped at him,

"Do you suggest that Lord Melbourne wishes to marry me for his own ambition?" she shouted, a fire beneath the skin. Her eyes flashed silver. Her dress became armour. Her skin was ivory. Robert recoiled, grey again, and mumbled obsequious apologies to the carpet. This was all very familiar, he thought. And, with a shock that almost forced a gasp from him, he remembered his Julia's words, and her request.

 _I ask you, Robert, as a wife to her husband, if it even comes to you to make a decision regarding the couple, please, remember what we have, what we had._

"Will Lord Melbourne inherit?" he asked, carefully, resigned, not meeting her eye, his heart beating and his tendons taut with stress. He felt sick.

"No. It will be a… morganatic… marriage," she pronounced, disjointedly. She did not know what the word meant when Lord Melbourne had first said it to her. She was sure she was remembering it wrong. Morganatic… mornatic… morganitic? She should have asked him to repeat it a few times to her, but perhaps he would have laughed at her naivety.

"And you have discussed this with Lord Melbourne?"

"Yes."

"And he has consented to a morganatic marriage?"

"Yes. It was he who suggested it."

"I see."

A silence. A silence that almost lasted a lifetime. A silence that Victoria wished to scream into, just to break it. A silence that stifled her.

"I can do nothing more than to introduce the movement to Parliament, Ma'am."

Her eyes filled with tears, and she choked a sob, drawing her hand to her mouth, half-laughing, half-crying.

"Sir Robert, I-"

"Of course, Ma'am, you understand that, if Parliament votes in favour of the marriage, it must be conducted with the utmost care."

"Yes, of course!"

"And you must understand that a child cannot come of the marriage."

Victoria opened her mouth but uttered not a word. Sir Robert was sure that there were tears of sorrow in those eyes, grey and sad as the fog or the drizzling rain, softening the metal: molten. Victoria remembered how soft William was with her children: how he spoke kindly to her daughter, and how he held her son in his arms, and told him stories he couldn't possibly understand just to pass the time, pass the hours, and then how his eyes would shine when the child fell asleep. She remembered how, with such pain, William would remember his own children.

She had always hoped they would bring their own babes into the world.

How green their eyes could have been.

But, never mind. Not all could be. Husband would be enough. She must be grateful for that.

She put on a brave smile.

"Thank you, Sir Robert. You are a kind, kind man."

"I cannot promise how the vote will go, Ma'am. Politicians are wily things. I will try my hardest."

She held his hands.

"You are a good man. A good man."

Lord Melbourne was assured by the news that he received from the Queen and, still, he was nervous. Two weeks passed. There was a riot in the Commons. The chandelier trembled with it. The light fractured.

"Are we not, as Parliament, the representatives of the people of this nation? And therefore, are we not obliged to mirror the mood of the nation?"

"We are protectors of the realm! We uphold the constitution!"

"Hear, hear!"

"Lord Melbourne is a good man. As long as I have known him, he has shown no signs of political motivation in his relationships. Perhaps, if it were the honourable gentleman," (he was looking straight at the Earl of Aberdeen, cushioned within the plump and fleshy throng of Tory ministers) "who was wooing the Queen, then there would be need for concern!"

There was a great cry which rose from the Tory benches for the Whig minister to retract the statement. But there was no offence in it, the speaker protested. So, it stood. Sir Robert despaired. He agreed with the sentiment, but the delivery was foolish.

 _Damned Whigs._

"Is it the role of this Parliament to deliberate on the justness of love? We have no obligation! I am shocked that the Right Honourable Gentleman has even suggested such a thing to the House! Parliament has no sovereignty here!"

Sir Robert took this opportunity to stand,

"Need I remind my honourable friend that this is not some common marriage I am asking this House to discuss but the marriage of our monarch! It is our role to approve of the monarch's marriage! We did so for the late Prince Albert, and we will do so again. I ask the House, nay, I beseech _you_ to consider the Queen's nerves, and how stress has – on multiple occasions – prevented her from fulfilling her duties as a monarch!" Sir Robert spoke through a grate of his teeth. He knew that the Queen's wits were sharp, sharper than those of almost the entire house, but he also knew that their blunted wits were susceptible to believing the folly and hysteria of women – and feared it like the plague.

"Then, am I right in saying that the Right Honourable Gentleman wishes Parliament to turn over in submission to the Queen's whims, simply because we fear a little hysteria? Am I to believe that we shall humour her in every wish, simply because we are afraid of her madness?"

"I believe we must be afraid of madness! Whilst King George III is still a recent memory, we must endeavour to keep the monarch sane!"

"And a marriage to Lord Melbourne will keep her sane?"

"Drive her insane, more like!"

"Order! Order!" the speaker cried. "Order! Gentleman! Order!"

The papers thrust into the air made a whirlwind. The jeers and cries bubbled into the air, making thunder, hooves of war, flags of war, trumpets and drums.

The bell tolled out whilst Victoria and William were walking together in the gardens of Buckingham Palace and, hearing the bell which a lifetime of politics had taught him was the signal for a vote, he said, softly, sadly,

"There's the vote, Ma'am." He had a politician's temperament: always believing every other man to be against you. Victoria was not that way inclined and, although afraid of the result, she smiled at him, and jeered,

"I do hope, William, that, whatever the result, you will cease calling me 'Ma'am'!"

"A habit," he laughed at himself, hanging his head, a blush forming on his cheeks. "It is difficult to pull an old man from his habits!"

"Old? Why do you insist on calling yourself 'old'? Whatever the result, you must stop insisting you are 'old'!"

"You seem to have many objections. Perhaps you have changed your mind, and you do not wish to marry me?" William asked, cocking his head at the woman he loved, who had stooped to the ground to hold the head of a flushed peony. Her skirt, as pink and pretty as the peony, bunched beneath her, blossoming out at the base of her, into petal-like shapes, blooming.

"Unfortunately, William. I am quite in love with you," she said, nonchalantly, picking the peony from the bush, standing up again, walking on air towards her love, and bringing the flower to his face, stroking the petals along his cheek, and watching the effect fondly. She kissed the places where the petals had touched.

The bell ceased. And time passed. And, eventually, the pair were told that Sir Robert had arrived at the palace. Time had grown short, and they had hardly noticed the sun setting and the salmon paintbrush strokes in the sky. They had hardly noticed the crickets chirping in the darkened leaves and the cold encroaching on the land. They could not have noticed the stars and the moon, full and bright, alighting. Their peace was disturbed. Their hearts were pulled, and their nerves buzzed. They felt their tether being stretched, and the scissors poised, ready to fall, ready to fall. Blades sharp. No matter how they told themselves that this would not mean the end of what they had.

They went inside together, and silently.

Sir Robert looked tired, they both observed it. And it struck them with fear. He did not look pleased, they both observed it. And it struck them with fear. He did not speak for a while, they both observed it. And it struck them with fear. The room seemed larger now than ever, more hollow, filled with empty spaces and echoes and cold drafts and gusts. It could have been filled with spider's webs and dust. It could have been completely unfamiliar. It could have been haunted.

And then, to banish the silence, the hollowness, the drafts and the gusts, the spider's webs, the dust and all the ghouls, Sir Robert opened his mouth to speak and pronounced, carefully, the words he had rehearsed a thousand times in the carriage on the way to the palace.

"The House took a vote this evening. As a result, Parliament have not only consented to a allow a secret morganatic marriage but, after one year's public mourning, the House have deemed it acceptable for a public declaration of marriage and a marriage ceremony to take place between the two of you. Allow me to congratulate you, first, Ma'am, on your engagement."

A gasp. More of a cry. Victoria and William were given a blessing. That was what it felt like. They could have kissed. William could have taken her into his arms and lifted her into the air. They could have cried. But Sir Robert Peel was in their company, so they were civil. They thanked him. They gave each other glances that expressed it all: disbelief, shock, relief, confusion, excitement, joy, utter joy, and so much love. So much love.

Sir Robert Peel did not say that it was he who introduced the movement to allow a public marriage. He did not explain how he had argued the case for it, today. He did not explain that he did it to allow them a child. They would not have understood Julia's words still on his mind. He kept quiet. And watched. Was this suicide for his ministry? Perhaps. But Julia would be very proud of him. And that would make him happy.

And it did. She was one of the few in the whole of England who would know for the time being. The others would have to wait a year. But Julia Peel was very, very pleased, and kissed her husband with fervour. It upset her that she could not attend the ceremony, but was consoled by the fact that – in one year's time – she would be able to. Oh, how she looked forward to the day!

But, for Victoria, the day came quickly. A secret marriage, but a marriage nonetheless.

There was no ordering of dresses for a secret marriage, so she wore the same dress. The same Honiton lace, so fine, and she loved it just as much as she did when she first wore it, though – now – the circumstances were far more beautiful, and made the delicacy of the lace so much more fine. Her satin slippers hugged her feet and her skirts brushed and waved at her ankles. The sapphire brooch, his sapphire brooch, still rested on her bosom, a token to her dear friend who her heart still grieved for, but now, within the confines of the brooch's pin there lay the head of an orchid. One of Brocket's orchids, grown and given Brocket's light and soil, the same light and soil that was rooted within her lover's past. And soon her husband's. No orange flower blossoms this time, but gardenias. Their flower. Laced in her hair and on her dress. She was a garden and a lady, and her face glowed with the sunlight, butterflies on her lips and dew drops in her eyes.

She was told that gardenias were a symbol of untold love.

And so, her untold love buried and clasped in her bosom to hide from the world, but not from he who would receive the full force of that love, she walked unaccompanied and unaided down the aisle of the chapel, a small place, not grand like the Chapel Royal, but perfect and quaint and intimate. There was gold, and that gold was nothing in comparison to her. There were shards of coloured light fractured by the stained glass in the windows, falling on her and breaking her form into those colours. Her shoulder was a sliver of green. Her cheek became a splinter of deep purple, her eye fell in a circle of pale icy blue. And, yet, she brought every fraction of her multi-coloured form together into a perfect whole as she walked from colour to colour, everchanging. She could feel God within her. It was holy. It was divine. She was sure she could hear angels; their choirs, more beautiful than any opera, with greater tune than Mozart, an ecclesiastical sound, rapturous.

And the lady walked in light.

And William Lamb stood at the end of the aisle, awaiting his angel. Awaiting his epilogue. He saw every flower that bloomed on her and understood its placement. She was beautiful, goddess-like. She was demure, and yet strong. He was the luckiest man. Filled with a golden light, flowing in every vein, pouring into every artery, every chamber and valve.

She reached him, her body numbed. This was all very surreal. It seemed like a dream, for this had happened so often in a dream for her. This could not be her reality. Surely. It had always creeped into her bedchamber, seeking her out. Every day of her marriage to Albert she would dream of this. She knelt beside her love.

She thought she could never have it. And, now, she would.

 _Alexandrina Victoria, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together according to God's law in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?_

It was their choice to omit the promise to 'obey' her husband. They did not deem it appropriate for a Queen, or for any wife of William Lamb. What need had she to obey him? He would sooner obey her. Victoria smiled to herself when she did not hear the Archbishop say it. She remembered the joke that William had made when they were discussing the matter. Kneeling beside him, she turned her eye to look at him, and he cast a quick look at her, too. He, too, was smiling.

"I will."

 _William, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together according to God's law in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?_

He did not hesitate. His heart told him the truth.

"I will."

He looked at her, when he said it. That gaze: green and gold, shared only with her. She gasped at the intensity of it. She gasped at the sensation of being bound under God to him. She gasped to realise that he was her husband. And, as he guided the ring on to her finger, speaking the words of the Archbishop, she was so happy she thought she would weep! This happiness, this joy, was something she never thought she would feel again.

The band of gold, tied around her finger, burned into her skin, sending a glow through her. She looked to his hand, and the same ring dwelt there.

Husband and wife. William and Alexandrina. Widow and Widower, no more.

And, for a moment, Victoria was sure that she was composed of stardust.

That night, which came so quickly after the day which seemed so heavenly they thought it would last forever, Victoria sat on her bed in the quiet of her bedchamber, clothed in her nightgown which suddenly seemed so thin. She thought it would tear like butterfly wings. It gave her no relief from the cold, which nipped at her skin, and made her shiver. It was very strange. Her wedding night to Albert was dizzying. There were all the celebrations: the cake, the food, the alcohol and the people all chattering and laughing. But this was different. There were no public celebrations, no chattering, laughing people. The palace was almost silent.

She was not afraid, not that, but she was a little nervous. She wanted to make him happy.

When William entered, Victoria's heart skipped. She had seen him in a state of undress before, but now it was dark and they were alone and it was intimate. He wore a nightshirt, and his hair, silvery, fell in tousled rings over his forehead. She always loved his curls, particularly in the wind, when they became more real, more raw. He looked genuine, in the lowlight, the flickering warmth of the candlelight falling delicately over the lines of his face, the raise of his cheekbone, and the shadow in the hollow of his cheek. He was so beautiful. And hers. Hers, hers, hers.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you._

He, too, was nervous. She looked so delicate in her nightgown, her hair free from braids and oils, falling across her shoulders, long and dark and in waves. She gazed at him, and he was made breathless and heartless. He wanted only to please her.

He sat next to her on the bed, his breathing steady and rhythmic. The sound of it soothed her, lulled her. Her breathing was not so steady as his. He was so close to her, now. She yearned. He loved.

"Of course, we cannot consummate properly yet, my love, for fear of you becoming laden with child," he explained, taking Victoria's hand from her lap, and wrapping his own hands around it. Oh, what a joy, Victoria thought, to have those hands at long last. His voice was barely audible and so mellow. "But, Victoria," he was hushed, and he leant into her, close, whispering his words to her ear, so – out of all those souls on this earth – only she could hear them, "when the time comes, I would be honoured to make love to you."

 _Oh, William._

Then, he took her into the bed, guided her, and, as in all things, was gentle as can be.

Widow and widower no longer.


	12. Epilogue

Victoria had always held the opinion that palaces were not the place for children. They were too large, too wide, with too many fragile objects and not enough clean air. London was not a place for children, either. Kensington had been grief. The memories of that childhood – so unhappy locked within the grand walls, grasping at air, at freedom, at wide open spaces and grass as far as the eye could see. Longing for deep and dark woodlands and hills to climb. She longed for a childhood like William's. So, as soon as they were publicly married, Victoria spent every possible moment with her husband and children at Brocket, and, when they she was compelled to business in the capital, William – who had taken up residence – entertained Victoria's children to the best of his capabilities.

The title 'Victoria's children' was only a formality, used by them on occasion, to reiterate that it was those children alone who could inherit. But, in truth, William had become a father to them now, and as close to them in spirit as a father should be. They were no longer shy of him, or hesitant, but they revelled in his company, enjoying the little games he would indulge them in, and his hand to hold when they were afraid or alone. Victoria enjoyed nothing more than to see her children and William together, in harmony, as happy as could be. She would watch them from her desk, casting her eyes beyond the dispatches and towards her family. A tight-knit circle of domestic bliss: something she had never imagined for herself. Something she had begun to think impossible.

What Sir Robert had done for them could not be taken for granted. He had given them their life.

The marriage – the public marriage, attended by the bright-faced and optimistic people of Great Britain who, on the whole, saw no harm in the match and took to it quite fondly, understanding the Queen's happiness to be paramount, more important than party politics which they did not care for – was a splendid one. There were great, merry bells tolling into the spring air, bright and new, swathed in the gentility of the new season, with all the cheerful daffodils and baby rabbits. Obviously, London town was not graced with the sunny daffodils and rabbit kits, but they were still felt with the coming of the springtime.

 _Sweet lovers love the springtime._

Victoria had been able to have a new dress made for the wedding, which pleased her tremendously. She kept the veil of Honiton lace she had worn when she married Albert, as a token to him, but the dress was made anew. This was William's dress. Bertha collared and silken, white just as she liked it, and embroidered in the most delicate gold thread, that caught ablaze in the light, glittering as if within the thread was encased embers of a dying fire, or the light of distant stars. The collar showed her neck and shoulders, highlighting the elegant line of her clavicle and the soft skin around her breast, and she was most pleased with the springtime look (Harriet had been most insistent that the wedding dress should complement the season). The train was long, as was the fashion with royal weddings, and extended in her wake. Angelic. Brocket's gardenias made a halo above her, and her hair was arranged in chignons at the back of her head, graceful coils of her dark hair, parted from the centre. Again, it was a style Harriet had recommended and, although afraid to shirk her trusted pendant brides, Victoria had trusted her. The result was most satisfactory. She felt like a woman. She felt like a wife, though she had been a wife for a year. It felt more real now than it ever had done before. The world was about to see.

Everyone attended: those who were happy with the match and those who weren't, and there was a warm cloak of festivities above the Chapel Royal that day. Sir Robert Peel, glowing with a happiness that he was careful not to let show, brought his beloved Julia Peel with him. Julia was almost at fever pitch; she had been excited for a good deal of weeks, and had planned her outfit meticulously. Sir Robert thought her quite charming, and held her on his arm as she peered over the heads of men to get a look at the Queen as she proceeded down the aisle, heralded by great bands of music and cheering, approaching her lover and (as Sir Robert knew) her husband.

All the men, politicians who had known Lord Melbourne for many years either intimately or competitively, were united by a common thought – that they had never seen the ex-Prime Minister look quite so happy and, strangely, quite so young. It was as if the years and the stresses contained within the time had been wiped clean from him, like tarnished metal polished to glean once again. He gleaned, practically glowing as he watched his young bride approach. He remarked inwardly how this was different to their private ceremony of marriage. Where she had once moved in an everchanging colour, she now moved through crystal white. A bright sunlight guiding her way, catching fire on the embroidery. Her skin was velvet, rising and falling above her silken neckline. A wife only to be dreamt of.

He took her hands at the end of the aisle and, although far away, Julia Peel could see his hands tremble. What a thing it was to be so in love, she thought, tightening her grip on her husband. Victoria did not tremble, however, but, instead, held firm to her husband's hands, willing them to steady, and looked at him with a strength beating beneath her skin that was utterly unique and uniquely beautiful. Wordless, she seemed to tell him: _do not be afraid, my love, they understand now._ And, with her strength guiding him, he stopped trembling, and breathed in courage.

Their vows were pronounced without shame. Fearlessly. Bravely. And not a single ear could doubt what they had heard, nor a single mouth dispute their ardour.

And so, as husband and wife, accepted by the world, they spent the summer in the gardens at Brocket. Such a peaceful summer. They tumbled outdoors every morning, allowing the sun to greet them and warm them, and Victoria wore white every day. She allowed her hair to fall free, as she sprinted barefoot on grass in her nightgown. If anyone had seen her, it would have caused a scandal hot enough to scorch her. But the only person to see was her beloved husband, who laughed and thought, as she ran along the waterside, her form silhouetted over the glinting film of the river, breaking and catching the sunrise, that she was the most exquisite creature in the world. Victoria ran to her children sitting on the riverbank, and took their hands, guiding them to the water's edge and allowing them to paddle, dipping her toes in with them. She held up the hem of her nightgown and wriggled her toes in the crystal waters, cold and clean. She would laugh at how the flow tickled, and turn over her bare shoulder to see the green and gold of her love's eyes. And then, she would turn her head up to the sun and watch how the light gets momentarily blotted out by the wings of rooks. Their caws would mix with the percussion of the running water and the buzzing of the bumblebees. The sound was happiness itself.

It was at Brocket on a summer's evening, on the bridge crossing the river where they had once ridden their horses, when Victoria, holding a thin shawl around her shoulders, and leaning over the stone wall, looking down into the water below, told her husband.

"What is it, my love?" William had asked, taking a hand to her arm, trying to make her out in the twilight. Victoria smiled at him, her heart bubbling with the anticipation of the reveal. The night was so warm, and his touch so sublime. She could have frozen that moment forever, and lived in it for eternity. But she did not. She opened her mouth, and laughed as she spoke,

"I am with child!"

"What?" he replied, his voice barely there. He looked suddenly like a lost thing, looking about himself, eyes wet with an onslaught of _feeling_ and mouth hanging open as if hoping to catch the appropriate words. "Victoria… Victoria, I-" He was speechless, and so Victoria stopped his mouth with her lips. It was chaste and simple, but she poured all of herself into it. Pulling away, her hands gripping his, she laughed to see he was crying.

The news was received joyously, and the pregnancy was the most comfortable Victoria had ever experienced. Lord Melbourne was so considerate, so patient. He eased her fears and her pains. He whispered love to her womb, listening and feeling for the kicks.

Victoria went into labour on a Tuesday evening at Buckingham Palace and, much to the distress of everyone, she insisted on taking the journey to Brocket Hall.

"Victoria, my darling, I think it would be wise for you to stay here."

"No!" she cried, her breath coming fast through her gritted teeth. She groaned. "I will not have our child born in London!" She was pale and sweating, but pulling on a shawl and wading through the palace towards the carriages, pursued by her husband, trying to suppress his panic. Unstoppable as always, the carriage was prepared at the greatest haste, and was soon thundering along the English roads towards Brocket Hall, carrying the Queen, her husband, and their unborn child, who was pushing its way out, impatient. William held Victoria's hand the whole way, ignoring the pain of her nails digging into his skin, and talked her through the great swells of pain, reminding her to breath. Keep breathing. Keep breathing. Breathe. Breathe. We're almost there. Brocket is calling. Breathe. Breathe.

The child, their child, was born early on the Wednesday morning in the bedroom of Brocket Hall, brought into the world and straight into the arms of _her_ father.

There was a general gladness that it was a little girl: for it would have been harsh on a young boy to have been born to the Queen, and yet have no claim to the throne. A little girl was preferable and, although Victoria and William would have adored any child of theirs, they understood the positives of the female gender.

 _And what a pretty little girl she was!_

Blue eyes, just like her mother, cold and clear and striking. The most beautiful eyes one could imagine, staring widely at this big new world, and into the face of her father, who looked at her with such adoration and pride to make her feel entirely welcome to this strange new place. So small, and yet so alert already. Hardly making a noise. Hardly crying. She fit into the crook of William's arm as if made to fit there. He never wanted to let her go. She was precious.

Eventually passing the child to her mother, Victoria noticed how she had her father's expression. Docile and gentle, but there was something almost witty in the new-born babe's gaze. It was as if, only moments after birth, she was mocking the world around her. It made Victoria laugh, exhausted and drowsy in her cocoon of pillows. She would be a forceful child, she knew that already. One with a great many observations, and a great many jokes to make of them.

It was surreal. Victoria and William looked at that tiny figure of a human, created by their two souls, and they saw the girl's entire life stretched out before them, stretching far out into the sun until they could no longer see the path. A million tears unshed, but would fall before long. A million laughs not yet laughed, but would be chuckled before long. A million heartbeats not suffered or enjoyed, but that heart would soon beat for sadness and love. A million words to speak, not one spoken yet.

Victoria had suggested the child be named Alice, for she remembered him commenting on more than one occasion that Alice was his favourite female name. And, for the middle name, she suggested Elizabeth – after William's mother who, in his own words, had such a strong influence on his manner. William protested, arguing that the name had too much of himself in it, and that her life should have more of an influence on the little girl's titles. But Victoria replied that his life was her own, and that Alice Elizabeth Lamb was such a pretty name, worthy of a daughter of the Queen.

And, so, Alice was borne into the world, and into the embrace of two doting and kind parents, and into a circle of a family that was good and full and happy.

It was autumn at Brocket, a familiar time for them, that had once been painful – perhaps – but was now quiet and burnished. The twilight was falling upon the tired land. Young Alice was in her cot. Edward was curled in his mother's lap, and Vicky was falling asleep in William's armchair. William held his wife close to him. She fell upon the lapel of his jacket. Her hair tickled his chin as he planted a kiss on her forehead. Victoria felt the breath of her husband rising and falling in his chest, lulling her, as they both watched their children, falling asleep. The rooks made gentle crows in the distance.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

And, there, they remained, living out their happy epilogue.


End file.
